In the beginning ...!

The title of this post, many will have instantly realised, is the opening words, in most English language translations, of Genesis - the Book of Beginnings. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters." (Gen 1:1-2). That is the Revised Standard Version (my personal favourite), but I checked more than fifty versions, and found less than five that had slightly different words! The first eleven chapters of that book show what Almghty God, the Creator, had in mind when He made us, and explains why we think and feel as we do. In a world of chaos, we have - whether, or not, we consciously recognise it - a deep instinct to get back to the order and harmony that God designed at the start. 

I am old enough to remember when, in the UK, there was "television" - just one channel, with a break every few hours. During those interludes, a number of items were used to fill the time, one of which was a potter at his wheel. Perhaps you have seen something similar! The potter starts with a shapeless lump of clay that is thrown on to the wheel. Then from what is an appalling-looking mess of clay and water, the fingers and hands of the potter fashion a beautiful container, or whatever. That is not a bad illustration of God at work in Genesis.

Almighty God made everything. "... the heavens and the earth ..." refers, in contemporary understanding, to the whole known universe. He started by making His raw material - ex nihilo ("from nothing"!). Before He spoke, it was chaotic, formless, empty, dark, and deep. But God's Spirit was hovering, like a mother-bird fluttering above her nest, stirring her young to fly, bringing what is incomplete to maturity.

Of course, before a play can be staged, there's a lot of work involved in designing, constructing, and painting the scenery. That is, in effect, what we see Almighty God doing next.

[If you have access to a copy of the Bible (and if you are reading this, then you must have access to at least an electronic version, or versions!), read Genesis 1:3-19.  Do so slowly, aloud, and carefully in order to "get a feel" for the rhythms, and for words that are repeated].

Many, sadly, get so caught-up with the length of the "days", that they miss out on the basic lesson - that the Creator has a well-planned 'working week' that sets a pattern, and a rhythm, for all of our work. For the record, by the way, I believe in six literal days for the Creation, but I would not make this, in itself, a major issue. What is more important, I would suggest, is that none of this happened just "by chance" - the only reason why the billions of years postulated by the evolutionist, are required! 

Read the passage again, and see how the heavenly Father, steadily and methodically, tackles the different elements of the chaos of the first two verses. On the first day, He puts darkness in its place, gives it a use, and creates light to control it. Then, on the second day, He parcels out the deep into sea and rain, with sky and space to keep them apart. So, we see that what was formless begins to take shape. To go back to our earlier picture, the lump of clay still requires a lot of work - but at least it is beginning to look like a pot rather than a plate!

On the third day, God starts filling what was empty - the sea with dry land, and the land with life-supporting vegetation. On the fourth, He works some more on the lighting. The darkness will be tamed, rather than total, and the two great lights are set to add rhythm and marker-posts to the orderly passage of time (itself, of course, a created entity!). God has now created the conditions in which animal, and human, life can exist.

But what has all of this to say to you and to me, living - at the very least - some 6,000 years later? Well, I wonder if you are going through a chaotic time in your life. We are certainly living in a chaotic world. May I recommend that you turn all such matters over to the One Who spoke, and it was so?! His timetable is different from ours, and a situation may appear not to change immediately. But He is working out His own purposes and, as we walk closely to, and with, Him, we will know that peace that only He can give. That, in itself, will help to bring order to our lives - and even to the lives of those around us.