We are nearing the growing season here
in Oregon. Within several months home gardens will be sprouting from depths of
dark soil. From small seeds, life will emerge and through exposure to sun and
water, delicious vegetables will eventually be harvested. I am still somewhat
in awe at the explosion of life that germinates from such a small seed, even
though I have witnessed this miracle a multitude of times.
There is another miracle I want to reflect
on today. This is the miracle of something coming from nothing—from nothing to
something. Most of us have been in that place where we have nothing, see
nothing, and feel nothing. Life’s road has led us to a dead end. Our dreams are
dead, our hope has been crushed, we have lost our ability to see beyond our
painful present.
The second verse of the Bible, Genesis
1:2 (New Living Translation), reads: “The
earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters.” This
is an apt description of ‘nothing’ or ‘next to nothing.’ Or is it? The
remaining portion of the verse offers a critical detail: “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.”
Even though creation was in a state of ‘nothing’, something, make that Someone,
was suspended over the nothingness. When the Spirit of God is present, there is
a miracle in the making; nothing is about to become something.
I want to continue this thought in my
next blog post, but for now I want to encourage you to consider what Paul, the
first Christian missionary, wrote in his letter to the Colossians (1:15-17 New
Living Translation):
15 Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He
existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,
16 for through him God created everything in the heavenly
realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—
such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.
Everything was created through him and for him.
17 He existed before
anything else, and he holds all creation together.
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