Wilderness Management
10/2/24
I am standing in the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness a part of the Custer Gallatin National Forest. The United States Congress designated the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness in 1978 and it has a total of 943,648 acres. Bighorn sheep and mountain goats roam about this mostly rugged country, along with elk, deer, moose, marmots, coyotes, black bears, wolves and members of a substantial grizzly population. It contains 948 high mountain lakes, 318 of which contain fish and 630 that are barren. The Beartooth Mountains are home to the highest 41 peaks in Montana, including Granite Peak, which is the highest at 12,799ft. The district serves as the northeastern gateway to Yellowstone National Park and is home to the Beartooth Scenic Highway.
I like to think that I own this place. It is so vast and beautiful and it is my favorite place to go and spend my time. Close to God but away from people.
Many people tend to view the heavens as God’s domain and the earth as ours. Psalm 1 begins with a simple statement of fact: the earth belongs to the Lord (v. 1a). This means, of course, that it does not belong to us. While each of us occupies a place on the earth and many of us possess property deeds to sections of the earth, we cannot truly claim it as our own.
We are tenants in this world, not owners. God owns it, and He lends it to us. We are merely stewards (managers) of His property, His world. In return for tending to His property, the Lord has granted the earth’s provisions and fruitfulness to sustain us.
Not only does God hold title to the earth but also to everything in it (v. 1b). This is what is meant by the fullness thereof in the second part of Psalm 24:1. All that fills the earth, everything contained in it, also belongs to Him.
We really need to grasp this sobering truth. We think of possessions as ours. After all, we make them, we work for them, we buy them. But the Bible teaches that what we have is not actually ours. Everything—including the possessions we have—belongs to God. We obtain these things through the abilities and power that He gives us (Dt. 8:17–18).
The Lord owns all of the property of the earth and all of the earth’s possessions belong to Him.
The Beartooth Plateau gets its name from Beartooth Peak, which has the appearance of a bear's tooth. The scenery here is breathtaking - rugged mountain peaks and expansive plateaus, alpine tundra, glaciers, wildlife, wildflowers, and rare land types found nowhere else in the United States. I am so glad that God has made me a tenant and a steward of this amazing place and I will continue to pursue “Joyful Persistence” from these high mountains.
