God's plan for humanity: prosperity & authority

'And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."' - Gen 1:28

Our God loves fruitfulness, doesn't He? As it is the first commandment given to man, I tend to think that fruitfulness must have been a distinguishing characteristic of our humanity before the Fall. It is almost a strange thought, as I live in a culture that very much devalues fruitfulness of the womb. We might be the only species on the planet that systematically promotes infertility of our own kind... hm. Ironically, much of the motive behind deliberate sterilization is brought on by a desire for prosperity. Interesting.

In his second commandment, God bestows us with authority over creatures of the earth and sky. I suppose we messed that one up terribly after the Fall:

"Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen." - Rom. 1:25

I wonder, as redeemed people of God, if we will ever be able to "subdue" the earth as God had intended in our lifetime. We can hope, I suppose. For now, I end with this vision from C. S. Lewis:

"The beasts raced forward to greet her, and as they rushed through the feathery vegetation they startled from it masses of the frogs, so that it looked as if huge drops of vividly coloured dew were being tossed in the air. She turned as they approached her and welcomed them, and once again the picture was half like many earthly scenes but in its total effect unlike them all. It was not really like a woman making much of a horse, nor yet a child playing with a puppy. There was in her face an authority, in her caresses a condescension, which by taking seriously the inferiority of her adorers made them somehow less inferior--raised them from the status of pets to that of slaves...

'The beasts in your world seem almost rational,' said Ransom.

'We make them older every day,' she answered. 'Is not that what it means to be a beast?'"

-C. S. Lewis, Perelandra