Time, space, and matter.
In the beginning… This is how the bible opens up the story of God’s relationship with man.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth. The Earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Genesis 1: 1-2
I mentioned in an earlier post that God, Adonai, is a God of order and understanding, not of chaos and confusion. Amongst all of NASA’s exploration of space, the only place where there is order and life is on our planet Earth. The simplest and most ubiquitous measure of order is time. It is there in the first sentence, “In the beginning”. The beginning is our beginning. The beginning of our time, this Earth’s time. Not God’s time. God created time in the void of space to be the rhythm of our lives.
An omnipotent Creator could create in 6 seconds or 60 days. The real question is why? Well, it’s like asking the potter why did you shape this vase this way or paint it blue. He would probably answer, “Because I like blue” or, “I thought that shape was aesthetically pleasing, so I left it like that.” Hence as it is said, “God saw that it was good.” God likes 7. And as we see in the creation of the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai, 7 becomes an important number in the order of their calendar and the order of their lives. Again, God is taking them out of the chaos and confusion of slavery, where life was revolved around work and recreating by bringing back order, understanding, and worship into their lives.
So why even create us in the first place? Well, one common descriptor of God is that He is love. Have you ever loved someone? I don’t mean love, and then one day realize you’re not in love anymore. I mean to love someone so much that you would give up your life for them and spend your life taking care of them if they were incapacitated and confined to a bed. When I mean taking care of them, I mean cleaning and feeding them and more unglamorous things.
I have, and my greatest desire is not only to be loved by them but to pour out my love on them unabashedly and without any self-preservation. We all have that desire; why do so many people have pets? We need and want something or someone to pour out our love on. We are made in God’s image. He is love and He is the Creator of the universe. And we are made with the ability to love deeply and create. That is why He created us. To have a relationship with us and to love on us. More on this in another post.
I can’t speak for others, but this is why I long to have children, to love on them like God has been loving on me.
Creation was an act of love. If we love God with all our soul, strength, and mind, we will also love our neighbor as ourselves.