Estimated reading time: 3 minute(s)
We use the word “awesome” far too often in our culture. That sounds like something you’ve heard your grandpa say, or your great-grandpa. (Or his grandpa…) We assign it to anything and everything: sporting events or just a moment in said event, a movie, a meal, and pretty much anything that may happen in the course of a normal day.
But today, as I was reading Genesis chapter one, the first word that came to mind was “awesome”.
Jen and I are going to try to read through the Bible together in 90 days (using YouVersion.com‘s Bible in 90 Days plan). We just wanted to ingest Scripture again, not in small chunks, but in its entirety. Might be aggressive with all the other reading we enjoy doing (have you seen my “currently reading” list in the right sidebar of this website??), as well as the daily to-dos with work and family…
But it seems it will worth the extra effort. And there already has been a “wow” (“awesome”) moment.
(Not that there will be those every time, nor that such moments are the reason for such an undertaking. But… it was kinda neat, so I am sharing.)
Two things struck me about Genesis 1. First, in the New Living Translation, the phrase they used for “and it was so” was, “And that is what happened.” It made me chuckle out loud the third time I read it. So matter-of-fact: And that is what happened. Period. I love that the reality is, God spoke it, and that is what happened. Certainly something I’ve seen, noticed, considered before… but somehow I was struck this time with the simplicity of it.
Which led me to the second point: the account is incredibly simple, but the actual result is so complex what we have learned about the processes behind the operation of the universe in the subsequent millennia completely blows us away.
And I thought, God merely spoke a simple command, like, “Let there be lights in the sky” and “that is what happened.” The enormous complexity down to the quantum level and the vastness of the “lights in the sky”… all from a couple sentences.
The sheer power of this Creative Being created that vastness, that complexity, by only speaking a few words.
We would take years and years of planning and testing and building (and failing) until we had something pretty close to good. God spoke our entire universe—reality itself—into its intricately complex and ridiculously vast existence in six days.
We can argue about what a “day” is, or if God used “evolution” to create everything… or if he made things and let the process work itself to what we know in modern/recorded history. Certainly he placed adaptive capabilities into all that we know as life (and even other processes) on our planet and beyond.
But evident to me today was the unfathomable power of creativity that couldn’t help but produce greatness… seemingly without any effort whatsoever.
Awesome.
Amazing. Beyond words.
And that is what happened.