God and Me

God and Me – Creation

In the beginning…I wasn’t around, contrary to how old my son believes me to be. I didn’t see how God created the sun and the moon, the earth and the seas, the birds and lizards and fish and elephants. I wish I was there when God created black flies—so I could have stopped him. But I wasn’t.

I wasn’t there so I don’t know how long it took—whether days in this case means 24 hours or not. Whether God created in a blink of an eye, or the blink of ten millennia. I don’t know that. I do know this—it all happened in the beginning. It all happened at God’s command. It was all good—God said so. And God made it all for love—no other reason. Because God wanted a relationship with others. What a gift!

And on the seventh day God rested, because he was finished. For the time being anyway. I envision God on the eighth day, stretching and yawning and then getting back to work, creating. A splash of rain there to make the apple trees blossom. A bit of sunshine there to dry out the wildebeests as they shiver in the early morning dew. Yes, I believe God is continually creating, continuously creating—over and over the same things, and then new things too.

Luther would have agreed I think. He wrote that God made him and every creature, that God gave and still preserved his mind and body. And that God provided things like shoes, food, shelter, and family each and every day. Creator still.

And we are his co-creators. As stewards of the earth, as caretakers and creatures both, our job is to tend and to co-exist with the natural order, to preserve and protect and produce as well. We produce – create – not like God from nothing, but from the bounty of the earth. From the raw materials allotted us.

And what kinds of things do we co-create with God? Things like penicillin. Pasta primavera. Cock-a-poos. Families. Friendships. Worshipping communities. Of course, none of these have the grandeur of the Grand Canyon, or the complex simplicity of warm sunshine on a rock, or the quirkiness of a duck-billed platypus. But because we create them with God—they are sacred. Sacred.

Think about it. What we do is touched by the hand of God. The meal we just finished, the proposal you labored on this afternoon, the poopy diapers you changed—all made holy due to our collaboration with God the creator in his continuing creation.

Once when I worked at the camp in NC, I was having a rough day. Nothing was working the way I wanted it, Lisa was crabby with Erik, and everything was just messed up. I remember I went out to do something, and I walked down the dirt road tat went through camp. And there at the woods edge I saw something. I thought at first it was a large white dog, or a goat. But it wasn’t. It was an albino deer, and some of his regular colored brethren beside him. Something you don’t see every day. He was grand!

Much later I realized—if I hadn’t been having such a day, I probably wouldn’t have walked that route, or seen that beautiful sight. It was a moment co-created by me—in spite of myself.

And that’s the way God is. He creates and creates. He gives and he gives. All in spite of our taking it all for granted or messing it up. It’s grace—nothing else—the way God includes us in his work of creation. Grace.

Close your eyes now and think back to a moment you created with God. The birth of your children. The prize pumpkin from your garden. A restored 69 mustang cherry red. Think about that relationship with God that he allows us. And think about all he creates for you each day. Thanks be to God!