Quiet Time Files 010113*

Let's start at the very beginning
A very good place to start
When you read you begin with A-B-C
When you sing you begin with do-re-mi
Rodgers and Hammerstein, The Sound of Music

In the beginning God...
Genesis 1:1

The beginning. A good place to start, indeed. This year's Bible read through, while consisting of readings from both Testaments and Pslams each day, naturally starts in Genesis.

At one time or another, all people through the ages have wondered about the origin of the universe. Entire mythologies, scientific fields and religious movements have sprung up to attempt to explain our existence.  But for a Christian, the answer is both simple and profound.

In the beginning, God.

We can't possibly fathom the mind of God, to know all the reasons why He spread out the expanse of the heavens, set the stars and planets on their courses and breathed life into man. But we know that He did. The universe was His idea, was spoken into existence on His initiative, was in no way of our making.

Scripture comes back to the act of creation in the beginning of John's gospel, as he is inspired to give a bit more insight on exactly Who in the Trinity was the architect of creation:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
John 1:1-3

In the parking lot this morning, a man stopped me to tell me one of my brake lights was out. He also pointed out the crescent moon, and how on dark nights, under the right conditions, its possible to faintly see the outline of the rest of the moon as a result of the reflection of the sun's light off of the earth towards the moon.

The moon was truly lovely. I smiled to myself, thinking of how Jesus orchestrated the particulars of placement of the sun, earth and moon, cycles and patterns of rotation and the rising time of the moon for my location in order to allow this older gentleman to spend a little time with me, talking about the moon.

*As in the past, the date in the header on quiet time posts is the date of the reading, not the date of the posting. It's simply easier for me to keep track that way.