Tenants of Planet Earth

“You, Lord, are my God! I will praise you for doing the wonderful things you had planned and promised since ancient times.” Isaiah 25:1

Patti and I rented a number of apartments and houses before we bought our first place to live. What a difference it makes to actually own the floors you walk on. Even though we were no responsible for all the upkeep, there was less worry about how the landlord would see things.

My very first apartment I shared with another Whitworth College student in Spokane, Wa. He worked nights at a restaurant and I worked days at Lothar Thaler’s Bavarian Ski Haus. We didn’t see a lot of each other, but you brought home some of the most incredible soups leftover from the dinner service. That was nearly 40 years ago. We were two college-age guys, but I thought we kept the place pretty clean.

I moved in February to take a job in Santa Clara, Ca., as Assistant Manager for “Pants for Less”. About a month after getting settled in I received a letter in the mail. I didn’t recognize the name on the return address, but it was from Spokane. I opened it, and to my surprise, it was a partial refund for my cleaning deposit on the apartment.

I called the landlord right way. My roommate and I had spent considerable time vacuuming the carpets, scrubbing the bathrooms and washing down the walls. We were counting on receiving the entire deposit. The landlord said the walls were greasy and there was dirt everywhere. Being only 21 and answering to an “old” 45 year-old landlord 1,000 miles away, I didn’t argue. I still wonder if we simply didn’t clean as well as we thought we had, or if the landlord knew I was out of state and there wasn’t much I could do to fight it.

No matter, within 12 months I married the girl of my dreams. Twenty-two and 19, we started our life in a little studio apartment for $150 per month.

I often think of my existence on planet earth as a sort of tenancy. God owns this incredible planet and we have the privilege to enjoy all of its wonders. No, not only does He own, it; He created it. This planet, the six other neighboring wanderers (sorry Pluto), our home galaxy The Milky Way, and all else, from minute atoms to mighty Super Novas; it is all His personal creation!

I love our Landlord. He cares about all the flowing beauty of undersea life and the rugged majesty of scorching volcanoes. Not only did He make it beautiful, He created beauty itself. He did not have to create grass, both soft and green. The sky could have been the ugly gray of used automotive oil. Plants didn’t have to reproduce by using flowers of every conceivable color. Nor did they have to bear yellow bananas, ruby plums, bright red apples or crimson strawberries.

Nor did He need to create humans with the ability to appreciate beauty. I know, cutting that lush lawn can become quite a drag by the end of the summer, but who would give it up to have a lawn as hard and ugly as a gravel pit? All of creation speaks about God’s character. He is highly creative, He cares about His creation, and He is intimately involved.

Isaiah the prophet knew that God was good. Not only was He good, He is holy. God was so much different and apart from His creation that it is nearly impossible to reach out to Him at all. But Isaiah knew God had reached out to him. In the sixth chapter of Isaiah he describes and encounter with this Holy God in which he fears he will die.

Isaiah knows that even at his best he was dirty rags compared to the bright perfection of the Lord. God was prepared, of course, and had an angel touch Isaiah’s lips with a coal from the altar of sacrifice, thus taking away Isaiah’s sin.

Previous to chapter 25, God reasserts His rights as landlord of the Earth. He describes how all the wicked will be judged once and for all in what some know as “the last days”. Isaiah is not thrilled that people will be punished, but he is awestruck by God’s faithfulness.

Having experienced God’s judgment himself, knowing that God will cleanse those who admit their own sin, he has learned to leave all judgment in the hands of the Lord. So now all he can say is, “You Lord, You are my God!” He knows that, just as God planned the incredible universe, and then accomplished that plan; in the same way He will accomplish everything He has intended from before the beginning of time.

We get to be a part of that plan if we accept the forgiveness Father God offered everyone through Christ. For on the cross every single sin was forgiven, not just for us who follow Him, but for the entire world. Jesus is called the “Lamb slain before the foundations of the world.” Whether it is His plan for your own life or God’s design for all of creation, nothing can thwart it from being completed.

So, enjoy being a tenant of the Universe’s perfect Landlord. And, through Christ, allow Him to forgive all.