The power of God

Yesterday I wrote about creation. I called it In the beginning. Every time I think about the beginning…the true beginning…I am simply amazed. There was nothing but God…and then there was everything as we know it.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

But how?

How did He create the heavens? How did he create the earth? How was there everything? It came through Christ but…

How?

Genesis 1 goes on to tell us what the earth was like…

 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep…

It was formless…it had no shape. Darkness was over the surface of the deep…There was total darkness. I can only guess that this must have been a darkness unlike any we have ever known.

When we’re in total darkness there is still light. A few years ago I visited an underground cavern in Florida. My family, along with a number of other people we didn’t know, descended into a cave with a guide to see some of the wonders of God’s creation. While we were down there the guide calmly tells us what it was like for the people that discovered the cave. She then told us she was going to turn off all the lights so we could see what it was like for those people. When she flipped that switch there was darkness. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. We stood there, afraid to move a single inch because there were drop offs, sharp rocks, other people, all kinds of hazards that we couldn’t see.

Even that darkness, so thick, so obliterating, probably wasn’t as dark as it was in the beginning. Because in the beginning…at that point…light hadn’t yet been created. Down in that cavern there could have been someone wearing shoes that had lights in them, someone might have had on something that glowed in the dark. I don’t remember seeing anything like that but it could have been there. And if there wasn’t maybe some small amount of light found it’s way down the tunnel we had come through, not enough for us to see it not enough for us to know it was there, but maybe it was enough to make the darkness just a little less…dark.

Because light did exist.

But in the beginning there was darkness.

No light.

And in that dark…

…the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

 So there was darkness and there was the spirit of God. On this formless earth there was God and darkness. Nothing else.

Can you imagine God standing in total darkness with a formless earth spread out around Him. I can’t. My human mind can’t fully grasp that.

So here we have God and He’s hovering over this formless earth. And there’s nothing else. Just God’s Spirit and darkness.

 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. Genesis 1:3

Boom. Just like that. Here there was total darkness. Complete and utter blackness. Then God spoke and light existed.  With His voice…He made light.

Did He yell into the darkness? Did His voice boom across the heavens?  Did it thunder over the formless earth? Or did He whisper?

Whatever He did…He spoke light into existence.  Where there was darkness now there was light.

But where was it? Was it all mixed in with the darkness, swirled together like some kind of tie dyed effect? Was light on the right and darkness on the left? We don’t know. Scripture doesn’t tell us where the light was. It doesn’t tell us how it mixed with the darkness. It just says He said let there be light and there was light.

Can you imagine the dazzling brightness of light appearing in total brightness? Years ago, back when I watched secular movies, they put a new movie theater in the town over from the one I lived in. That movie theater kept their interior dark. You could see in the hallways and in the main areas but only the bathrooms were well lit all the rest had very dim lighting. When you stepped outside after watching a movie you were blinded with light. The difference in the lighting inside and the sunlight outside was so much that you literally could not see. The bright light appeared as soon as you opened the exit door, which was at the end of a very dim hallway, and with the first step outside you could see nothing.

That first light, brought into the world with God’s voice, at His command, must have been so much brighter, so much more blinding. In total darkness light must have been brilliantly bright.

And there it was all mixed in with the darkness. Until…

 ⁴ God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.

What power it must have taken to speak light into darkness. With a few words. Then He separated that mixed up light and darkness. Scripture doesn’t tell us how He did that. It doesn’t say He waved His hand and light and darkness were separate. It doesn’t say He told the darkness to go here and the light to go there. It just says He separated it.

Imagine…being in a dark room and lighting a candle or using a flashlight... Now separate the light from the dark. Wave your hand and try to make the light go into one place. Push the darkness into a corner. It can’t be done. All you’d succeed in doing is fanning the air. You can move your source of light, change where the light sits in the dark room but we can’t separate the two.

God could.

God did. And then He named them.

God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

That was it. He created the heavens and the earth. He spoke light into being. He separated the light from the darkness and made days and nights, mornings and evenings. No big deal. Out of Him came the earth, the heavens, day and night. Because with His power, a power so big that His voice created, He made those things.

Then if that wasn’t powerful enough He moved into day two. And again He spoke…

⁶ Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” ⁷ God made expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. ⁸ God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

With His voice He once again created…this time He made expanse.

What is expanse? Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as…

: a large and usually flat open space or area

It was a flat open space. He put an expanse between the waters.

“Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters… Just like that He created Heaven. With His voice. Now there were two different bodies of water. One above Heaven, one below. The waters were separated…because He spoke.

But He didn’t stop there. That powerful voice took up the next day. He picked up where he left off the next day.

⁹ Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.

With His voice He created land. With words He made dirt and sand, clay and all all the other soils that make up earth. Let there be…and there was. Just like that.

If creating light with His voice didn’t show us how powerful He is, if creating Heaven with His voice didn’t show us, now He’s created land with nothing more than His words.

Who can make anything with their words? What speech can create something from nothing? Man does not hold that power. Our words can affirm, they can wound, they can heal, they can communicate but they can’t create.

But God’s can.

Let there be…and there was. Just that simple.

And then He did it again in the same day.

 ¹⁰ God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good. ¹¹ Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them”; and it was so. ¹² The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. ¹³ There was evening and there was morning, a third day.

Then God said…and there was all plant life on earth.

Have you ever grown a garden? I have. I’ve had a garden that took up my whole back yard. Some of it was started with little plants I bought, some of it from seeds we planted. Regardless of how those plants got started they took care and work, tending, watering, weeding, pruning. I didn’t simply tell the plants to grow and left them alone. I wasn’t able to tell them to bear fruit and sit back and wait for it to happen.

But God did. He spoke all plant life into existence and placed within them all that they needed to grow and produce, to live, to reproduce. He spoke and they were…for all of time. His voice created everything in the plant kingdom that would keep them going for all time.

Just like that. Boom. Let there be…and there was. That’s pretty powerful to me.

Day after day he exhibited that power. Over and over. With His voice He created. When He finished making all plant life He picked up where He left off the next day. Again He went back to His project. He left nothing undone. There was nothing He didn’t think of.

¹⁴ Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; ¹⁵ and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. ¹⁶ God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. ¹⁷ God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, ¹⁸ and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

With His voice He spoke the sun, moon and stars into existence. I have sat out under the stars many a time and just looked at them. I could care less about the constellations people claim to see in them. I don’t care about their location or what they’re made of. I don’t need a telescope to see them closer. I simply like to marvel that they are.

…The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Psalm 19:1

It simply amazes me to look up at the vast expanse of sky and see the stars dotting it. God spoke stars into existence so that man could have light to see. So that we can see His handiwork. He put them there for us.

And then He continued with His creation.

²⁰ Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.” ²¹ God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good. ²² God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” ²³ There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

He could have left the land free of animal life but He didn’t. He said…and there were animals on the land, in the waters, and in the air. He filled the earth with animals with His voice. If creating land, the sun, the moon, the stars, and plants with His voice wasn’t enough He made animals. So complex, so profound, that they have different functions, different purposes. Some are very smart, some we wonder if they can think. He placed some here to nourish the people He would soon make, He placed some here to eat other animals, He even gave some the ability to do things for people that people can’t do for themselves.

Long before the first service animal was used to help man, God put in them the ability to do just that.

And He did it with His voice.

Talk about power.

Animals took more work though. He didn’t stop at making them. He went back the next day and worked on them some more.

²⁴ Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. ²⁵ God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

And then…

²⁶ Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ²⁷ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

After all that work God created man. Man which was the reason for everything else. He created man and gave Him rule over all the earth. 

I’ve brought life into this world. Felt those babies move as they grew inside me. There’s something miraculous about growing another life inside you but it’s a miracle of the Lord’s making. I’m simply the vessel He used to get that child into the world. There’s no power involved. There’s no…I think I’ll have a baby and so one begins to grow. It takes the work of the Lord to make that baby grow.

Even if I choose to have a baby, even if I go to great lengths to make it happen…even then it will only happen if the Lord desires it to be so. It’s His will that lets that child come into existence, it’s His power that creates the miracle that becomes the child I brought into the world. It’s the Lord’s doing. I was only the vessel He used to make His plan come to fruition.

But there…in the beginning… Then God said, “Let Us make man… God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Just like that. He created them. With His power. They weren’t there…and then they were.

If that’s not power I don’t know what is.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. ⁴ In Him was life…John 1:1-4

In those verses how the beginning came to be, how everything came to be is summed up. They came through Christ. Without Him there would be nothing. And they came through His power. Through His voice.

He spoke and there was.

I understand that there are ‘Christians’ that don’t believe in Genesis. Here is the basis for how all of life began. And there are people that claim to be Christians that don’t believe those beginnings.

…The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Psalm 19:1

I can’t help wondering what people that deny the truth of Genesis see when they look at the heavens. What do they see when they look at the sky, at His handiwork? I simply marvel at even the smallest thing in nature because God created it and it amazes me to think of how He took nothing and made whatever it is I happen to be looking at. Even a speck of dirt…was His handiwork. And it serves a purpose.

There was nothing and with His all powerful voice God spoke the world into being.

How can anyone deny His power?