The mystery of creation. How could an intelligence complex enough to conceive of all that we know exist? What are its tools? What are its methods? What are its aims? The Bible offers some answers, but in the end they have not yet become deeply satisfying to me. In the end, my mind is inadequate to the task of explaining or understanding the mystery of creation. In that realization, I often feel angry, or maybe resentful is a better word. It seems unfair that I cannot KNOW the answers to the very mystery that resulted in my own existence. When I think about this issue, I always think of a line from Catch 22, which I can't remember word for word, but it goes something like "what in God's great scatological mind led him to decide that tooth decay and old people losing control of their bowels were necessary elements of creation?" I think that line captures the resentment I feel. Underneath the resentment, if I sit with it, is a profound sense of humility and awe. When I try to understand the mystery of creation going on around and within me all the time, I get a sense that I am much like a tiny animal, opening my senses to an oncoming storm that will come and go and come again, seemingly without end, without cause, and without purpose. It is the last issue that causes the greatest sense of turmoil. Purpose. Is there a grand purpose to this creation as the simple story of Protestant theology that we hear in the church often tells us? A plan for reconnection with the creator with a "happily ever after" ending? I have heard faith defined in so many ways. One definition is "being open to the mystery of Being." The Creator manifesting in more and more complex ways as Creation. Ever mysterious, ever changing. It is beautiful, humbling...and it is scary. Moving deeper into contemplation of the mystery of creation offers spiritual experience that will not make clear where I am going, though complete submission through humility becomes the only response as I move deeper and deeper into the Mystery, losing the self that was not me.

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I went to bed one night with the thought of creation on my mind. When I awoke the next morning my mind was consumed with this thought. God created all things, he started with the universe, the sun, the stars, and the earth. The earth is one of the smallest planets on one of the smallest solar systems in the galaxy. The earth is ever revolving, it revolves at about 900 miles per hour. But it also moves in an orbit around the sun, and it moves at 19 miles per second around the sun. The earth along with all the other planets in our solar system moves within our galaxy at one million miles per day. Our solar system is located in an outer spiral arm of the galaxy called the Milky way. The Milky way is moving at about forty thousand miles per hour. Within the Milky way there are over 100 billion stars, one of them being our sun. The Milky way galaxy is one hundred light years side to side, and is thiry thousand light years from Galactic central point. Light years are measured at about 12 million miles per minute, which is as fast as you can possibly go. Our galaxy revolves around the Galactic central point every 200 million years, plus our galaxy is just one of many galaxies that make up our entire universe.
What is most humbling about all of this is that God also created you, and he created me. Considering the scope and the size of our universe, we are but specks of dust. Yet God knows the count of every hair on your head, and every hair on mine. And what is truly magnificent about all of this, is because God gave us his son Jesus Christ, we get the opportunity to know him too. God says, I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, because they will "all" know me, from the least of them to the greatest, for I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. (Jeremiah 31:33-34). Paul prays that we will not only know God, but that we will have a spiritual revelation. The difference being, knowledge is the knowing of facts and truths, wisdom is a spiritual revelation of that knowledge so we can apply that knowledge to our faith and then within our everyday lives. So Paul is basically praying that we not only get to know God, but we understand our revelations through the Holy spirit, and through that we can increase God's Kingdom, and teach people to walk with Jesus.
If nothing else, once you consider the enormity of the universe, the next time you are easily angered by some situation, something, or someone, maybe you will consider how silly that is. Because in the broad scope of things, those little things that anger us, are truly and without a doubt, completely insignificant.

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God, you are my Almighty Father. You are ever-present. When I pray and center myself on You, I am embraced. As a child does a parent, I look to you for guidance and help, and you do not let me down. Your love and faithfulness keep me secure. Oh, the comfort of feeling safe, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.
Your love for me is patient, and kind. You are never disrespectful, or easily angered; you keep no record of my wrongs. You rejoice in truth. You will always protect me, always trust my capabilities, always hold hope, Your plan will always persevere. Your love will never fail me.

Sometimes my heart gets weak,
Sometimes my soul feels the edge of the night.
Sometimes my will, my foolish pride,
Carries me far, far away from Your side!
And when I lose my way, I know... I look to You to find my strength.
Carry me to the end of my days!
A steady hand to lead me through,
Arms of faith to bring me back to You!
I will keep my eyes on love, set my heart on things above!
When my soul is so afraid, I look to You to find my strength! Sometimes my hope, it slips away.
Sometimes my dreams come crashing down!
Sometimes my life, this crazy life,
Has a heart, has a heart of its own!
And when I lose my way, You know I look to You to find my strength.
Carry me to the end of my days!
A steady hand to lead me through, arms of faith to bring me back to You!
I will keep my eyes on love, set my heart on things above!
When my soul is so afraid, I look to You to find my strength!
When the tears keep pouring down, and my lips can't make a sound,
I know You hear my prayer, and Your strength is always there!
~Natalie Grant~

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And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:10)

I am a remarkable perfectionist. It's sad, really. I am never happy with anything I do. I am extremely quick to critique myself, and I don't even think I do that well! I'm working on this tendency, because I know that as long as I think this way, I'll always be relatively unhappy.

Living with this tendency, I cannot fathom being completely happy with something I have created.

What must it be like to finish something and not see anything wrong with what you've made? To not think to yourself, "I wish I had done it this way," or, "What if I had tried this instead?"

Seeing so much flaw in what I do, it's even more remarkable to me that God--in all of His wisdom and complete perfection--looks at me and thinks that I am "good." He made me the way I am, and He wouldn't change a thing about me. He created me this way on purpose and without regret. Instead of thinking how he would change me, He thinks instead, "I love that about her," and even, "I'm so glad she is that way."

I cannot imagine thinking that way about something I've made, and it's mind-boggling that someone--let alone God--would think that about me.

He's God, though, and in His sovereignty, He knows what He's talking about. He loves me. Period.

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God,

You are my Father and my Creator.

I was conceived in Your thoughts before I was formed in my mother's womb.

I had a place in Your heart before I was even a twinkle in my mother's eye.

You had a plan for my life before my parents ever dreamed what they hoped I would be, and you were guising my steps before I ever knew there were choices to be made.

You are my God and my Father. My Abba.

You see Your creation and still believe that it is good. Lord, help me to live up to the way You see me.

Father, I know I have fallen desperately short at times, but I thank You for never giving up on who You know I can be.
You are my Creator, and I am the created.

I love You, Lord. Help me love You more and more.

Amen.

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