Only a Number, Not a Name

 
PRAYER:

Father God, thank You that we have a name, just as You have a name, Jesus, which means Savior. We are, however, so sad that Your nonhuman animals on factory farms only have a number, as the picture informs us. Is this what Your Heart desires from us?

We have dominion over Your nonhuman animals (Genesis 1:26), but are we to have domination over Your animals on factory farms by numbering and eating them? Certainly not! We have not been told to number and eat Your nonhuman animals when Your Word says, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food” (Genesis 1:29). You also instructed every beast of the earth to eat ‘every green herb for food’ (Genesis 1:30). “Then God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). Your ‘very good’ Instruction is meant for us to reflect Your Image and Character, Father God, which is defined in 1 John 4:16, “And we have known and believed the Love that God has for us. God is Love, and he who abides in Love abides in God, and God in Him.” Your Love was with us, humans and nonhuman animals, in the Garden before the Fall. You have not changed Your “very good” Heart about this, because the ‘very good’ Heart of “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

Father God, we as humans number and eat Your nonhuman animals on factory farms by the billion (the U.S.D.A. reports nearly 10 billion land animals are slaughtered in American factory farms annually), but is this Your Character and Image of Love when You gave us dominion?

In Jesus’ Name, the Name of Love above every other name, I pray we return to the Way of the Garden with You, eating the Garden Diet, as You instructed us to obediently follow. Thank You, God, that You know me and all Your human and nonhuman animals by name, and for loving all of us just the same.

Amen.

ONLY A NUMBER, NOT A NAME

(by Timothy J. Verret, inspired by CCC’s Friday Night Live Sermon on Dominion)
 
We give them a number but not a name.

God had Adam name them, so why don’t we?

God made them to name them. We don’t, we claim.

They deserve a name, not a numbered fee.

 

We give them a number but not a name.

God made a covenant with them, do we?

God made them to love them. We don’t, we shame.

They deserve a name. They want to be free.

 

After The Flood, fear and dread were riot,

says God’s Word. But God stayed in the Garden.

God changed not His Love of Garden Diet.

Animals, not meat. God’s Heart, not harden.

 

Don’t we want a name, not numbered fair game?

They are only a number, not a name.

 

Photo by Sebastien on Unsplash