[BIBLE] Creation

[Lou Ruppert <lruppert@syr.edu>]

 This week is on Genesis 1:1-5:

 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was
formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the
Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.  And God said, "Let there be
light," and there was light.  God saw that the light was good, and he
separated light from the darkness.  God called the light "day," and the
darkness he called "night."  And there was evening, and there was morning
-- the first day.

Notice anything backwards here?  The first day starts with darkness and
ends with light.  Normally we think of day as starting with first light,
and ending with the last darkness.  But every time the creation account in
Genesis talks about another day it specifically says "and there was
evening, and there was morning."  So what is God trying to say with this?
That we're idiots?  Partially.

Look at Christ's resurrection.  He's born in a dismal part of the planet,
during a military occupation by the world's biggest most brutal
superpower.  Grows up and is persecuted and then slaughtered like an
animal.  That sounds like the end to any story, but it isn't.  It is the
beginning of the story of the resurrection.  What looks like evening to us
is actually "morning".

God often uses trials and things as a canvas through which he can speak
forth his light into our lives.  So rather than looking at how your life
undoubtedly sucks, look at it as a place where God can do his work.  Being
imperfect, it's easy for us to look at situations where our perception
begins and ends rather than seeing it through the eyes of God working out
something important in his world.


-Lou

Lou Ruppert - Network Systems Programmer, Syracuse University: lruppert@syr.edu
       "The Lou Ruppert home page": http://www.ucf.org/~lruppert/
"And the LORD said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon
     thy face?" -Joshua 7:10  See http://www.ucf.org/God/offer.html