God's Good Idea: WorkSýnishorn

The God Who Works

The Bible begins by telling us something about God. It's not a description of God's nature or a hymn to God's glory. Rather, the first thing Scripture reveals about God is his activity: God created the heavens and the earth. Where once there was nothing, now there is something. Indeed, now there is everything. Scripture starts with a bang.

To use more general language, the first thing we learn about God is that he worked. He made something. He exercised his creative, visionary, ordering power. Throughout chapters 1 and 2, we see God engrossed in the shaping of creation.

“The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:2).

The nascent creation, though still “formless,” has the material dimensions of space (“the deep”) and matter (“waters”), and God is fully engaged with this materiality (“a wind from God swept over the face of the waters”).

Later, in chapter 2, we see God working the dirt of his creation.

“The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground” (Gen. 2:7).

Work isn't something added on to the biblical story. It comes right at the start. In the beginning, God worked.

Prayer

Thank you, dear Lord, for graciously revealing yourself to us in Scripture. The first thing you show us about yourself is that you are the God who created all things. You are a God who worked, and who is working still. May you work in and through my life today. Help me to see all of my work this day as an imitation of your creativity. Amen.