In the beginning God created...

Recently started my fourth read through the Bible and I cannot get out of the first chapter of Genesis. The creation story provides so much to consider. So much said, so much left unsaid.

God speaks and from nothing an entire universe comes into existence. Was it six 24-hour days or six billion years called six days? Either way the power to create something from nothing leaves any comprehension or research of that creation limited to what the owner of that process wants to convey.

God ordered the universe.
Day, night, weeks, seasons, years - God built time.
Land, sea, sky - God built space and place.
Birds, fish, animals, plants, trees, us - God built life.

Big bang? What started the bang?
Evolution? What kicked off the first beat of life in the primordial ooze?

"In the beginning God created...". These five words set the foundation for the rest of the Bible and the rest of history. Those five words are the prerequisite to the everything else. If I have trouble comprehending something else in the Bible or something in life, consider those words in Genesis 1.

God's creation, God's plan, God's power, God's rule.

If only that were my starting point for the way I try to see everything.

It is all God's. It was nothing then God created. I was nothing then God created. Anything I 'have', God created. Anything I experience, God created. Just understanding it all is His creation, His plan, His power, His rule would make sense why I have so much trouble making those things mine.

IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED...

Small Enough

The story goes...

After dinner Theodore Roosevelt would step outside the White House to enjoy a cigar with his best friend, William Beebe, the famous naturalist. The two men would look up at the sky, when their eyes had focused on the tiny patch of light near the constellation of Pegasus, Roosevelt would say in prayerful tones, “That is the spiral galaxy of Andromeda. It is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of 100 million galaxies. It consists of 100 billion suns, each larger than our sun.” Then Roosevelt would say, “Now, I think we’re small enough. Let’s go to bed.”

I get so caught up in my tiny piece of the world. My minute sphere of influence consumes my focus. This little slice of the universe so overwhelms me.

It is good to stop and take in the vastness of the universe and how little it is focused on me. It continues to plod along without consideration of my problem de jour or even what happens on this tiny little speck of a planet. Only a God of infinite proportions could place us in something so eminence and unmeasurable.

Yet, within all of the spinning, revolving, wobbling, twinkling, rotating, burning and exploding, I am not lost but found. This great big all powerful God reaches out of the dark infinite and found this insignificant and touched it. Transformed it. Only by grasping my smallness can I begin to step into true worship.

Now, I think we’re small enough. Let’s go to bed.