Outline of the first book of the Beginning:
- Genesis 1, 2 Creation
- Genesis 3 Fall of Man
- Genesis 4 Cain & Abel
- Genesis 5 Genealogy of Noah
- Genesis 6-9 Flood of Noah
- Genesis 10-11 Tower of Babel
- Genesis 12-20 Abraham
- Genesis 21-26 Isaac
- Genesis 27-36 Jacob
- Genesis 37-50 Joseph
In the beginning, God created… Such an awesome statement. I have only made things. There is a difference between ‘creating’ and ‘making.’ When you make stuff, you use other stuff that exists. I have made bullets, computers, software, fire, and big explosions (there’s a good reason why I spent 20 years as a soldier).
Creating is different. It is making something from nothing. In my mind, I see a bunch of scientists challenging God on creation. When they begin their efforts, God shakes his head in derision and says, “Nope. Start with your own dirt.”
The Bible applies the concept of creating to one individual – God. Lots of people make lots of stuff in the Bible but only God Creates. God used Jan and me to create life. Being in the room for the birth of each baby involved pain, soaring emotions, prayer, tears… I can remember each one and I am just a boneheaded dad. My wife recalls so much more. With Lauren, it was Nurnberg, Germany, nice hospital, and red hair. It was an easy labor and Jan swears our first one came out smiling. An hour after birth, I called my beautiful red headed momma in the States and could hardly speak as I told her, “She has red hair.” Lindsay’s birth was in Wurzburg. Peeling paint, excitement, then fear. The umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck three times and face blue as she came out, literally hanging herself. After four days in a German pediatric hospital, she was fine and we could not wait to get her home. She is out intense survivor. Jonathan was the big bruiser, full of energy and action. Jan said she would never forget passing his big head out to life. So alert, eyes already zipping back and forth to see everything. Justin was our wonderful surprise gift. A last baby, calm and alert. Even then, it was hard to see what was happening behind those beautiful eyes.
Creation. All I can do is make stuff. By God’s grace and the love of a beautiful wife, God created life within us. That is a Love story that is personal from our Father in Heaven and brings tears to my eyes.
So many arguments erupt around creation. They link to evolution, biology, astronomy, you name it. In my almost 62 years of life, soldiering, research, scientific pursuits, and engineering jobs, I am pretty cool on how it happened. God did it in Six Days.
People of faith get uncomfortable, squirm in their chairs, and often roll their eyes, dismissing that supposedly scientific stuff, but are ill equipped to discuss it. In our obstinate silence, people of faith sometimes become the serene portraits of ignorance with a grumpy face – like “American Gothic,” the painting by Grant Wood of an unsmiling farmer and his wife. What if Creation really was a strange tale that mixed flavors of all the above? In ways that opens eyes as opposed to closing minds?
Beginning at the beginning, we need to trash can our Presentism based assumptions. As we walk the Scarlet Thread in WOKE, we will discover surprising treasures along the way. So much so that the next time a New Age friend talks about Niburu or the coming Avatar, we can comfortably sit down and talk. Not argue. Perhaps not even change our New Age friend’s theology but talk. In that communication, we can proclaim an even stranger, more wonderful story than UFOs and Aliens, a story about a savior who dies and returns to the living after three days. Before we go there, we first must take on the primary problem people have with Genesis 1 – the six days of creation.