Back to our roots – let’s prepare for the future!

What are you focusing on: looking back into the past, trying to cling to the “good old days,” trying to bring back what has been lost; or are you looking ahead, forgetting those things that are behind, stretching towards the goal that has been set before us?

I think that both perspectives are absolutely necessary. Our past helps us to stay focused on the goal of our life, which is still in the future. “We have nothing to fear for the future except we forget how the Lord has led us in the past …” (Ellen G. White, Life Sketches, p. 196) How often have we read and quoted this sentence! And I get the impression that the devil is trying to catch up with it.

Back to nature

This urge is quite old (Jean-Jacques Rousseau is supposed to have postulated his “retour à la nature” in the eighteenth century!), but it has gotten stronger with all the attempts to “save our environment” and “Fridays for future”-movements. Yet, what are we doing? Are we really going “back” to the kind of

“nature” that God created in the beginning? The fruit and vegetables that we buy are more and more of the “bio-product” kind (and we are willing to pay the extra price). We have more and more “forest kindergartens” and a few “forest schools”. We

provide children with all sorts of “nature education” in the classroom; but are we getting

closer to our Creator who has provided and is providing His creation for us? Should we

not turn our focus on Him who sustains the earth and the universe? Should we not ask Him how to best care for our environment and for our food (and this is why we as Adventists try to go back to the roots and find out about true organic gardening)? It seems to me that the devil tries to take the commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve (“and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” Genesis 1:28; “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15) and wants to make us believe that we are following good principles (which might be true), and yet he makes us forget Him who gave us all these commands and guidelines. Modern-day “nature education” focuses on evolutionary theories and efforts to save our environment; it leaves out the most important part: the One who created nature and wants to lead us to a better understanding of who He is through nature.

Biologic gardening

How wonderful! After decades of poisoning everything in our environment, we finally get back to biologic gardening that our grandparents and great-grandparents were good at. Yet, the “best” (and most expensive) products have an additional attribute: “bio-dynamic”. Many of our church members buy these products because they want to have the best, yet they have never thought of the philosophy that is behind these “Demeter products”: anthroposophic ideas, astrology, “sympathetic magic,” “reliance upon esoteric knowledge and mystical beliefs” (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodynamic_agriculture).

Can you see how the devil tricks us? God has provided everything for us, but in the past one or two centuries, we have lost most of it – and we have called it “scientific improvement”. Now, we find out that this man-made way of providing for our food (tomatoes grown in blocks of mineral wool …) doesn’t taste good, doesn’t have as many nutrients etc. And Satan tries to make us think that we are getting back “to the original” – but the Originator is not part of the plan.

Again, Satan has contaminated the good with his own plan of bringing everything (even agriculture) under his control. Still, many people don’t have a clue what is behind “Demeter products” and think

they are the best “biological” products.

Go vegan!

Have you not seen it happen in the past one or two years?

Finally, people have realized how unhealthy flesh foods are, and we as Adventists are no

outsiders anymore! Cheap supermarkets are celebrating their “vegan weeks”, and we are happy that we can buy almost every meat and sausage flavor, yet without any animal substances – and for a good price.

Isn’t that what Adam and Eve originally ate in Eden (“Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat”)? – No, it isn’t. Have you looked at the list of ingredients? Almost no natural ingredient at all – most of it is either “modified” or “identical” with some natural counterpart, yet artificially produced. Does this correspond with our health message? Will this kind of “vegan food” prepare us for the heavenly menu?

Another side remark: God provided every tree for us “in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed” – yet “scientific research and development” have enabled us to grow almost every kind of fruit without these kinds of seeds … seedless grapes, seedless watermelons, seedless whatsoever. Isn’t that interesting?

Conclusion

When we start to think of it, we will find many more areas in our daily lives where the devil has trapped us into some sort of “substitute” for the original. He lets us think that we are going back to our roots, yet he distorts our view of that. And when it comes to education, we have a really terrible substitute for what God had originally planned. Let us pray more earnestly that God will help us to re-focus on the true and the genuine (the original that He has provided in the past) and make us wise to discern right from wrong! We will need this “gift of discernment” for the time to come. “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” (Phil. 4:8)

Yvonne Seidel has grown up in Vienna, Austria and has worked with children and adolecents from her childhood. She founded the elementary school at Bogenhofen Seminary and is currently the Dean of the School of Education (the Adventist Teacher Training program) there. Her heart burns for True Education and for preparing “an army of workers” that will finish God’s work on this earth.

Image sources:

https://www3.gobiernodecanarias.org/medusa/edublog/ceoprincipefelipe/publicacion-de-las-calificaciones-definitivas-de-las-pruebas-de-certificacion-de-ingles/

https://www.geo.de/natur/nachhaltigkeit/18213-rtkl-oekologische-landwirtschaft-bio-fuer-alle-so-einfach-liesse-sich-die

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/86/Demeter_International_logo.png

https://www.facebook.com/veganfooddeutschland/photos/