Creation

I think what I like best about this author is that He immediately stimulates my mind to begin asking questions - to delve deeper into who God really is. Some of my questions had to do with whether the Scripture matched up with what the author wrote but most led me to stop reading for a moment and just fall into a space of freefall questioning. I'd stop and ask one question and that would lead to another...which led to another...which led to another...

Some of those questions included:

Did God make light to sustain our (human) lives or did He think us up after He saw that light was good? In other words, did light lead to life or did the desire for us to have life lead God to create light?

If God creates by speaking does that mean that his creativity is limited by his vocabulary? Can God create what He has no words for? Is God ever rendered "speechless?"

Why did God make man first? And what, then, possessed Him to make a woman instead of just another man with female parts? Why come up with a whole new design? Male giraffes look like female giraffes yet men and women have totally different curves, lines, and sizes for the most part. Why?

[Okay...you get the picture! They were all just things I casually "wondered" as I went along.]

The poem on page 21 really got to me, too. The last two lines, "and how do you wear so many of us at once?" has been my defining question ever since I refocused my attention on being in a personal relationship with God. Every time I think I have God figured out...every time I think I know what He must feel and think and why He does what He does...I stop and look at how many people are on the planet at any given time. Then I look at how many leaves are on a tree and how many trees are in my yard and how many "yards" are on the earth...and suddenly I realize (as best I can) the size of who God really is. The enormity of what He creates and cares for just shatters me. It shatters my heart to think he loves each one of us individually - as the distinct people we are! We're not just His "people" - we're His children and that means He loves us personally. Wow...

Two of my favorite lines of this first chapter were:

"He hung the canvas of the universe with His words." and "The image of God is found in our unity as well as our uniqueness." These two single sentences probably inspired me the most to sit quietly and let my questions rise to the surface. The final poem, "Significance" made me feel like His child again, doing what every child does...asking his parents things like "Where did I come from?" "Did you and daddy want me?" "Tell me the story about when I was born." When you think of God as truly being your Father it is only natural to ask what this poem asks.

In the beginning, in the depths of your heart, were you thinking, already, of me?

Ahhh...now that's my ultimate question.