my father's world...

i had an interesting conversation today...just made me think. we were talking about if we had one question that we wanted to ask god and that he would answer, what would it be? (i know, sounds like a strange question to have a conversation about!) i guess some of us would hypothetically ask trivial or obscure things about the world, or science etc whereas others may ask the big philosophical questions about death and suffering. the guy i was having the conversation said that he would ask, what did the future of the human race look like... in other words, about the future... what's going to happen to the world? how far will science advance? will life get better/worse? are we progressing?
i guess i've not thought about it that way. of course all of us would like to know the future in some shape or form, to know what decisions to make now, to see what life will be like... but i've never really thought about the question the way he put it. i guess with all the talk of global warming, environmental disasters, the increase in hurricanes/tsunami/droughts (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6288445.stm - bbc article on nigeria that i read today) etc it is something that is coming more to the fore in the media. but i'm not sure i've thought about asking god about.
i believe he is in control of everything and therefore he must be in control of nature. also as creator, he knows all in relation to science/physics as it is all his work. so he knows what will happen in relation to the human race/the world...
in the same way, i do believe that he is in control of the mess that seems to be iraq even though reading the news makes the idea that his purposes are ultimately being fulfilled hard to chew...

the other thing the conversation made me think about was whether, if this world/this life was all there was to look forward to, maybe i would be more concerned about the preservation of planet for generations to come etc... but because i believe there is more to life than this world does that make me less concern about the natural world? do i switch off more than the average joe bloggs when climate change comes on the news because of my faith in 'something more' and the idea that 'this world is not my home'? yet surely because i believe in god, should i not be even more ready to stand up and fight ecological sustainability, preservation etc because of the view that we are caretakers of this world and actually the idea that 'this world is not my home' means the world actually god's which he has given to us for a time to care for?
it seems this is a debate that has been taking place in the states, and some evangelicals have actually gone again bush's policies up to now addressing (or not addressing!) global warming... so maybe they will have a voice in the future. (see http://www.ncccusa.org/news/14.02.05theologicalstatement.html

anyway. that was a bit rambling. what do you think?