Does God care where you go to the bathroom?

At a recent outdoor church service, I asked the children if they knew any of God’s commandments. They mentioned quite a few from the Old Testament such as don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t swear, obey your parents and so on. I asked if they remembered the one about where you should go to the bathroom when you’re camping. They laughed and shook their heads.

There are many commandments we don’t hear much about. Many of them have to do with the fact that God really loves creation and wants us to care about it too. Here are a few I shared that day, along with an invitation to the children to see if they could figure out the reasons for these commandments. (You, dear reader, could also try that!)

1. If you are out camping, don’t just go to the bathroom anywhere near the tents. If there isn’t a bathroom nearby, take a trowel and go far away from your and other people’s tents. Dig a hole in the ground with your trowel, pee and poop into the hole, and then cover your business with dirt (Deut. 20:19).
2. If you are out hunting and you come upon a bird like a grouse sitting on a nest of eggs, you can chase the grouse away from the nest and eat the eggs and even the little birds, but you may not catch the mother grouse and eat it (Deut. 22:6-7).
3. If you are fighting a war and you need trees to make ladders so you can climb up onto the city walls, make sure you don’t cut down any fruit trees (Deut. 20:19).
4. Proverbs 12:10 says that good people know the needs of their animals.
   Don’t plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together (Deut. 22:10).
   Don’t put a muzzle on an ox that is treading out your grain (Deut. 25:4).
   Don’t boil a kid (baby goat) in its mother’s milk (Ex: 23:19).

These few examples from the Old Testament show us that God is an environmentalist and cares a great deal about how we treat creation.

When Jesus was on earth, he said that there were really only two especially important commandments: 1. Love God, and 2. Love your neighbours.

One of the best ways to love God is to love and take care of the things that God has made, including living things like plants and animals. If we take care of the earth and its creatures, we are showing love to our neighbours because they also need a healthy creation in which to live. So keeping the earth free of pollution and treating plants and animals with respect are just as much part of God’s laws as are not lying and stealing.