Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Our reading, titled Gratitude on Earth Day, was written by Lisa M. Samra.

Earth Day is an annual event observed on April 22nd.

In recent years, more than 1 billion people in about 200 countries

have taken part in educational and service activities.

Each year, Earth Day is a reminder of the importance of caring for our amazing planet. But the mandate to care for

the environment is far older than this annual event. It goes all the way back to creation. In Genesis,

we learned that God created the entire universe and formed the earth as a place for humans to dwell. Not only did he

fashion the mountain peaks and lush plains, God also created the Garden of Eden, a beautiful place

providing food, shelter, and beauty for its inhabitants. After breathing life into his most important creation, humans, God placed

them in this garden and gave them the responsibility to work it and take care of it. After Adam and

Eve were expelled from the garden, caring for God's creation became more difficult. But to this day, God

himself cares for our planet and its creatures and asks us to do the same. Whether we live in

crowded cities or rural areas, we all have ways we can care for the areas God has entrusted to us.

And as we tend the earth, may it be an active gratitude to him for this beautiful planet.

Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from Genesis chapter 2, verses 4 through 10, and verse 15.

This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth, and no plant had yet sprung up,

for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no one to work the ground. But

streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the

ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden, and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds

of trees grow out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.

...