GENESIS 1–2
Before there was something, there was Someone. Go back as far as your mind will allow you to, millions or billions of years, go back beyond the creation of the world, before the existence of matter and energy, space and time, drive a stake in the nothingness you imagine and an odd thing happens. From behind the mysterious nothingness steps a benevolent Creator to greet you.
This God revealed (but definitely not contained) in the Bible has always existed and will always exist. He exists as a communion of three Persons — infinite, personal, triune, transcendent and immanent all at the same time. It is from this eternal community of oneness that all others derive life, meaning and purpose. It is from this eternal community of oneness that everything that exists is spoken into existence.
From out of the depths of His love, He spoke light into being, separating it from darkness. He created spiral galaxies filled with innumerable stars, related to each other by distances that can only be measured in light years. And out of all the billions of places He could have chosen, He focused His attention on one tiny planet, lavishing upon that blue marble His love and creativity, giving it sun, moon and stars, atmosphere, dry land and water, oxygen, cherry trees and grapevines, hammerhead sharks and falcons, wild boars and hairy apes and llamas. “So much beauty around us for just two eyes to see,” Rich Mullins used to sing. (From, Here in America by Rich Mullins)
And, at last, the pinnacle of God’s creation, humans. Perhaps He created us last as a testament to our inherent dignity — saving the best for last, so to speak. Or perhaps it was so we wouldn’t try to tell Him where to put things.
One thing is pretty clear, He didn’t need our help. It may sound trite and overused, but it’s true nonetheless, God is God and we are not. God created absolutely everything, and into this perfect garden of delight, He placed the man and eventually the woman, giving them dominion over everything else. God was to rule over them, and they were to rule over everything else.
There they lived in unbroken intimacy with God, with each other and with the world around them. It was an idyllic existence.
There was just one rule. Not 10 commandments. Not 613 laws. One rule. They were free to do anything they wanted except this one thing. Obeying the rule would serve as a reminder for them of Who was really in charge. Their Creator, the one who ruled over them, told them to avoid just one thing: Don’t eat the fruit of this one tree.
How hard could that be?
Prayer
O Lord my God, You are exalted above all things we can conceive and imagine. Time and space are a part of Your created order — You brought them into being, and You dwell in all times and places. You are the eternal now, the great I AM, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last. You are present everywhere and You rule all things, from the microcosm to the macrocosm. You spoke, and energy and matter came into being. Your boundless power and wisdom are evident in Your works, and all things derive their being from You. The beauty, radiance and wisdom that abound in Your creation all point beyond themselves to You, their Creator and Sustainer. I ask for the eyes to see Your goodness, beauty and truth as I behold plants, trees, animals, insects, sunrises and sunsets, landscapes and the starry sky.
In Jesus’s name, Amen
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