The other day I was explaining to my people in Moriah how bacteria turn milk into yogurt, when one of our youngest staff dropped the teaspoon she was using to taste the new product we were producing.
Are bacteria and viruses the enemies of man? Are they plague that God sent to punish the sins of man? Were they made to end life on earth?
The other term for these microbes is germs. But do you know that what we call germs are part of what God created? And Genesis 1:31 tells us that when God saw all that He created, He saw them as very good!
As I studied the different aspects of farming, I discovered that what we consider germs are an integral part of nature. Most viruses, bacteria, and fungi are decomposing agents. They take dead matter and convert it back to soil. But they are also purging agents too, they attack the weak yet leave the strong alone. So today, I use them as an indicator of how well I have taken good care of our crops. When I have a lot of disease issues, I now know that there is something wrong with the system we developed.
But while there are "bad" germs, there are also good ones. The good ones help us to grow and remain healthy. You get diarrhea when you eat something with a lot of bad bacteria or fungus. While you can take an anti-biotic to cure yourself, a better way is to take in probiotics, like yakult. When you do this, you let the good germs overpower the bad one.
We saw the same phenomenon in our farm. In 2016, we experienced our worst El Nino, it lasted almost one whole year! Because we were running out of funds, we improved our composting process so that we can maximize the use of the manure of our livestocks. When the rains came, we were surprised that the fungus problem we use to have disappeared. When we experience one straight week of rain in the past, we would lose our crops for 2 weeks. But this time, our crops would thrive in spite of the rain. I later realized that by dumping a lot of well-processed compost, I allowed the good bacteria and fungus to overcome the bad ones.
If viruses, bacteria, and fungus were created for our good, then why are they killing many people in the world? It is because we have allowed the bad ones to multiply and overpower the good ones. When farmers mono-crop, they allow the germs that attack their plants and livestock to multiply. When we cut our trees, use a lot of pesticides, and kill our soil through the use of synthetic fertilizer, we kill the good germs that should have balanced the effect of the bad ones. When we overpopulate a city, we encourage the build-up of germs.
Using disinfectants will not solve our problems because you will just force the bad organisms to mutate while killing the good ones. So what are the solutions?
You go back to nature and learn how God created it. When we restored our ecosystem, by growing trees and planting grasses of every kind, we invited a lot of beneficial organisms. By using the waste of one to feed the other, we removed the build-up of disease. By resting our soil on a regular basis, we were able to let the soil rebuild itself and become healthy.
The conclusion is, never to fight against nature because we will never win. We should respect how God created things and then work around them and not against them.
The coronavirus is living out its purpose. It continues to be an agent of decomposition and purging. It is telling us that there is something wrong with the way we have been managing our lives. We can eliminate it by working with nature and not against it.
