God Is There

How many times have you heard (or read or watched) the account of Creation? More times than you can count? That may be true of many of us. You might even know the first several verses of Genesis by heart. Even if you don't, you won't have to go very far to have your mind completely blown by the magnitude and grace of God the Creator.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form. and void..."

~ Genesis 1:1-2a

In Robert Alter's translation of the Book of Genesis, he describes the "without form, and void" part as welter and waste, meaning chaos, turmoil, and nothing of any substance as from which to create anything. The Hebrew is tohu wa bohu, a term that indicates emptiness and futility; as in, it would be pointless to try to create something because there is nothing from which to begin. The Latin term for this is ex nihilo, out of nothing. 

Imagine nothing for a moment. You can't do it, can you? Try again. Nope! That growl in your stomach? It's still holding a place for something. The "0" on the scoreboard during Monday night's game? Still something. We can't imagine nothing because all we've ever known is something. We have never been without creation or its Creator. All we have ever known is somethingness and order: seasons, the sun rising and setting every day, seeds growing the same plant from which the fruit and seed come, human metabolism. We have never known complete formlessness and void the likes of which God has known. Even on our worst day. In the nothingness and confusion of losing a child, in the turmoil and confusion of divorce, in the welter and waste of a tragic car accident, in the tohu wa bohu of Alzheimer's, God is there. Is He afraid or intimidated? No. God speaks. God gets busy. God takes the chaos and disorder and subdues it, just as He did that first day. God takes the emptiness and futility and places it under His authority, just as He did that first day. God takes the nothingness and forces it to become something. He says to the welter and waste, "You no longer have a place here. Here is where time and light belong. Here is where life and beauty are given breath. Here there will be somethingness and regularity. Here it will be good. Here it will be for My glory!"

God's power and love --His powerful love, love that brings everything to be from absolute nothing, was manifested that first day. And is at work still today.