The beginning

This week is on Genesis 1:1-5:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

This is how it all began. It was a blank slate. Nothing but God. We often forget that God was before everything; that everything came from God. We address God as if he's occupying some planet-sized territory in the heavens, but he's not like that. He's amazing.

God has even conquered death on our behalf. Of course he has. He invented it in the first place. God invented day and night. God invented oceans and land. He designed each creature, even anticipating how they would change over time. (Dogs must have been a fun gift, knowing all along how many kinds there would be, but waiting for us to unwrap each new breed one-by-one over centuries.) He created us, and then offered us the opportunity to spend forever with him.

God's whims and desires manifested themselves in the days of creation. Even the idea of light and darkness are his design. The contrasts of air, land, and sea are his idea. He dwells in it all, hovering over it, cherishing it, and being in it. He's not far away. He's not out of earshot. He's among us, even in us.

Genesis is a fun book, because it describes creation as something God created in the same way we might undertake a weekend project or tinker with something in our garage. Everything we've ever known, or are capable of perceiving, came about over six days of work, for no other stated reason than that he wanted it and thought it was good.

No matter what you face, God is bigger than it. God is capable of taking it apart, fixing it, or replacing it. There is no problem you can have that God cannot understand and solve, fully and perfectly. The most wonderful and beautiful things, and the most horrible and frightening, are all God's invention. Everything bends to his will or is broken. There is no reason to fear or respect anything in the same way that we can fear and respect God. That's the beginning of wisdom.

The Bible begins with these verses telling us about how the universe was born. I'm sure some of us science geeks are curious about the details, but the real story being told is how great God is. Not only is the universe his, but even the dreams and ideas behind it were his. How can you not worship him, knowing that?