Primacy - "God Created"

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2)

Not long ago, I paid a bit of money to be able to have access to records to records of my family online. I found "ancestry.org" to be a useful tool, actually. I saw government and public records--census data, voting records, birth certificates, etc.--containing names of family members long gone. They would contain interesting (and even sometimes a bit unfortunate) tidbits of information as to what they did, where they lived, and even what was going on at the time they were in particular places.

I was able to trace my ancestry through Ellis Island through one side of the family. I even found out I likely had a direct relative who sailed over on the Mayflower and could have been one of the first English teachers on the continent (interesting to me since my father has taught English for much of his career). I found records extending into England/Wales, France, Germany, and Norway. I discovered family who had been married in a church in Bristol, UK, a place I visited years ago while I was still in college. I found out I was related to the founder of the Mayo Clinic, and also am a distant relative of Howard Dean (on the democratic ticket for vice president in 2004, of "yeeeeeeeeaaaahhhhh!!!" fame during the campaign). There are Johnsons, Beckers, Fogelsangers, Bearys, Andrews, Perdues, Mullins, Harpers, Largents, Gilliams, Riches, Wilcoxes... all kinds of names in there.

Well, all of that is interesting enough to others, but to me it was important to know something at least of where I came from. I found out more than I ever thought I would!

Reverse the clock several millennia, and put yourself in the position of a freed slave, whose family has been enslaved for centuries. Your ancestors came to Egypt during a famine, a move you are sure God orchestrated. But over time, proximity to the worship practices and religious beliefs of the host nation likely seeped in a little. Maybe you would have been one who wondered--where am I from?

When he wrote Genesis, Moses, I am sure, wanted to remind his great big family (fellow Hebrews) exactly where they came from and exactly who their God was.

What he first wrote, in Genesis 1, would have been of primary importance to communicate:

1. God is King. It isn't Pharaoh. It isn't any of their gods. It is God--Elohim, the ruler, which when put into the plural intensive of that meaning translates as "the true God."
2. The King created. There is not a god in Egypt who could do this. He fashioned His creation with care and thoughtfulness and purpose.
3. Everything that would follow, in anything that Moses would write, is rightfully seen through the lens he creates in Genesis 1:
• God's Presence brings order from chaos.
• God's Word brings existence.
• God's intention is life.
• God's blessing is purpose.

If you were a Hebrew, having just been released from slavery, having just walked through the Red Sea, and facing a barren wilderness with a people who did not yet know how to be a nation, I would think this lens would be reassuring and would drive them to dependence on this. It did not always work out that way, as one would discover from reading the rest of Moses' writings (Genesis - Deuteronomy, or what they called "Torah," or "The Law"). But all of what God would say and do could be read with that in mind.

How about you? What is your chaos? How can belief that "God brings order out of chaos" help sustain you in the midst of chaos?

What can God's Word bring to existence in your life that is not there right now, that you need?

If you believe that God's intention is life--real life as He intended it--does that have any impact on your decision making? How you live each day? How you see the actions of God in your life?

Do you consider your purpose--what you are doing right now--to be God's blessing? I'm not talking about just your job or career, but your day-in, day-out reason for existence. Caring for what God cares for. Partnering with Him on His mission. Are you doing that, and do you see it as blessing?

May you feel God's Presence today. May His Word speak life into you, the life worth living, even that eternal life experience in the temporal of now. May He speak His purpose for you into your heart.