Background Passages: Genesis 1:1-2:3
Most of you know I grew up on a farm near Ropesville, Texas. Small town. Great people. The South Plains equivalent to Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon “where all the women are strong, all the men good looking and all the children are above average.”
Growing up on that flat and treeless farmland on the South Plains of Texas provided endless vistas. The old joke says that in that part of the state you can watch your dog run away from home for three days. The horizon stretches forever in every direction.
That area of Texas has a desolate beauty all its own. You may have to live there for a bit to understand it, but it is a unique part of God’s creation.
That didn’t keep me from dreaming of far off places as I sat in Mr. Wallace’s sixth grade geography class. I saw pictures of places and things around the world I never thought I would see.
Decades have passed and I’ve been blessed to see many of those distant places in our travels. I am drawn to the wonder and beauty of God’s creation.
This week Robin and I are in the Canadian Rockies seeing yet another marvelous work of the Creator’s hand. While staring at the glow of a universe of galaxies and stars above Banff, it’s humbling to think these are the same stars and galaxies at which I stared as a child in the darkest nights out on our farm in West Texas.
Then, in the awestruck quietness of the evening, I recalled these words:
“In the beginning God created…”
Hear in those words the majesty and glory of a God so powerful he spoke the universe I see into being.
“In the beginning God created…” Please don’t make this a flashpoint for a bitter debate between a literal week in history or evolutionary process, spanning billions of years. Consider it simply man’s best effort to comprehend the incomprehensible. How he did it matters little. Why he did it pulses with eternal consequence.
In the beginning, God created a universe to open the possibility that you and I might freely decide to join him in relationship. Everything around us designed to focus our attention on him…to provide for our physical, emotional, social and spiritual well-being.
I’ve been reminded of the grandeur of God’s creation and my connection to him on a personal level. Felt him the mist of the waterfalls. Seen him in the deep forests and high meadows. Touched him as I dipped my hand in the pristine waters. Marveled at his majesty mirrored in his high mountains. An explosion of the senses.
Everything I’ve seen this week draws me to Genesis. Allows me to give thanks for God’s creation. To give thanks for giving me this life I’ve lived…and the one to come.
I am drawn to Genesis…to the beginning of his love for me.
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.
And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So, God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
Thus, the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so, on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
What I see around me shouts to the existence of a Creator God who dragged his finger lightly across the landscape to carve the valleys and uplift the mountains I see around me.
I am eternally grateful for the beauty of the world around me. And, the amazing thing is, he did it all for me…and for you. I sit tonight staring at the stars reflecting on all I have seen today. I have to agree with his initial assessment.
It is good.
So very good.