Although God was actively involved throughout the Creation process, in the beginning the “earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep” (Gen. 1:2,NIV). If you and I had been present at that time to view the earth, we might have had the impression that because we could not see any evidence of God’s activity, He was not doing anything. Yet at that very time, “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Gen. 1:2, NIV). He was actively preparing Planet Earth to receive His Word and be transformed into a place of beauty and purpose.
Are you concerned for a friend whose life is like “the surface of the deep”– undulating, unstable, always changing, and moody? Even though you have prayed without ceasing, have you seen no evidence of God’s activity in that person’s life? Have you therefore concluded that God is not active? Place your faith in the God of Creation and be encouraged! He is active whether or not you and I can see evidence of His activity.
In the beginning, the Creator was not stingy with our environment. He filled it with life. Planet Earth was progressively transformed as every day God’s Word went forth and every day God’s Word was received. Each day’s change prepared the environment for the next day’s change until it was totally transformed. Yet it was as though it waited for something. In the same way a church sanctuary, all decorated, waits for the bride and a nursery, all equipped, waits for the baby, Planet Earth was prepared but waiting to be completed.
All of the daily changes seemed to be setting the stage for the climax on the sixth day. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness” (Gen. 1:26, NIV).
Earth had been waiting for man! Man himself was the climactic jewel of Creation! You are His crown jewel!
Don’t break up what God the Creator has put together in an equal, diverse, unified companionship we call marriage. God is the God of the impossible. It does not matter how bad the condition of your marriage is. Turn it over to God, follow His directions, and He can mend the brokenness.
God has created everyone. Whether you are from Africa, America, or Asia; whether your skin is white or black or brown; whether you speak English or Polish or Spanish; whether your religious affiliation is Baptist or Buddhist or B’Hai; everyone is created by God. The entire human race comes with the Manufacturer’s directions for a pattern to live by, a place to live in, a purpose to live for, and a partner to live with. Isn’t it time you followed directions?
We can only imagine the concentrated thoughts that occupied the divine Mind and the gentle, skillful touch of the divine Hand that first shaped man from the dust. Where did the Creator begin? Did He start with a skeletal frame? Did He then cover it with an outside layer of skin, which at no place is thicker than three-sixteenths of an inch, is packed with nerve endings to enable man to feel the outside world, and is virtually waterproof? Into the skin stretched over the frame did He next place the heart that pumps seventy-two times a minute, forty million times a year? When did He hang the lungs in their sealed compartments so that the rivers of blood necessary for life can deposit the carbon dioxide and pick up oxygen to be carried to every single one of the more than twenty-six trillion cells in the body? When did He place the brain inside the bony skull and program it to send messages that travel faster than three hundred miles an hour along the nervous system to the entire body? Truly, we are fearfully and wonderfully and lovingly and personally created by an awe-inspiring, loving Creator!
Someone has said that if God were small enough for us to understand, He would not be big enough to save us. Yet the Bible is God’s revelation of Himself to us. And the revelation is true . . .
At the birth of time and space and human history, against the inky blackness of the universe and the shadowy mysteriousness of eternity, the character of God shone forth with the radiant beauty of a full moon in a cloudless night sky. Even the casual reader of the creation account in Genesis can easily identify . . .
His unequaled power as He called into existence that which had no existence,
His unlimited sovereignty as He took counsel with Himself and decided to create man in His own image,
and His unsearchable goodness that was revealed when He created Adam, the first man.
In what way have you glimpsed the character of God today? Would you praise Him for it?
