Wednesdays Word- The Beginning

Do you plan your posts?  Last night after fever, chills, aches and a night of misery, I do not have any photos or wit to share. This morning after reading your blogs a theme emerged. People are struggling. They are struggling with emotions like depression, temper, doubt, and confusion. People are asking themselves if what they do is valuable to others, are they in the right place? How do we know?

I can only concur and say ditto, me too. My comfort is that I don't stay there. I don't live in that mire.
I was rescued by a man. A man who exchanged my life for his life. He took away my heart of stone and gave me a heart of flesh. He provided me with a sound mind and sent confusion and fear packing.
He washed me clean. He healed my heart, restored my soul, and gave me eyes to see. I was once living in the dark. I am now walking in the light.

Without him nothing works. We are tossed about, unstable, unsure, doubting, feeling fear. Not knowing the truth but seeking for it. Having a semblance of spirituality that is elusive and changing, unsteady like shifting shadows.

God calls us to the deep. Deep what? What does deep mean? Does it mean some kind of Harri Krishna meditations chanting ommmmmmmmmm?   What is deep?

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 came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
John 1: 1-5 NASB

Who is the Word? Jesus the Christ. Jesus has always been just as the Father and the Holy Spirit have always been. They are outside of time. Time was created for man back in the beginning.

I started teaching from Genesis in my women's group. I thought I knew this story until I began to study it. Just the first two verses became two lessons. Learning what words mean in Hebrew unpacks a whole nutha level of understanding.....deep calls to deep.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God here is Elohim a plural noun. Elohim is the name of strong power, and created is bara meaning to call forth from nothing.

Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. Ps 119:18

Verse 2 of Genesis.
And the earth was without form, and void; darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters...
read John one again,

Now here is where the story gets very interesting.  In 1814 a man named Thomas Chalmers noticed the phrase, "without form and void."  without form is the Hebrew word   tohu, meaning a ruin or vacancy; void is the Hebrew word bohu, meaning emptiness.

He contemplated a verse from Isaiah: For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he has established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else. Isaiah 45:18.

Big deal what does this mean? What if you think the theory of evolution is science and don't believe in creation? Every one knows the earth is millions of years old right?

In this verse where God says he did not create the world in vain it is the same word, tohu
God did not create chaos but a cosmos. Everything we study in science is orderly. The earth is exactly so far from the sun, it's rotation an exact speed. Just a small deviation from these specific requirements for life would bring total destruction.

What this verse in Isaiah tells us is that the earth BECAME tohu va bohu something catastrophic happened between verse 1 and verse 2 of Genesis.  This is called the gap theory. Some great catastrophe occurred leaving the earth in this state of darkness. The word darkness here chosek suggests black holes masses so large light cannot escape.
"I saw Satan falling like lightening from heaven." Luke 10:18 Lucifer the chief angel whose very being was music rebelled and took one third of the angels with him.

What the Hebrew words suggest is that an epic battle, a great war of spiritual beings happened.  How much time passed between the verses? Maybe millions of years? Maybe enough to say to those who study the earth that we agree that the earth is very old. That yes some epic disaster occurred and it fits right in with the word of God.

So what? Why does this matter? It matters because from the very beginning God is providing revelation. We can skim the surface or dig deeper. The deeper we dig the more we marvel at the mind of God knowing we barely understand. We also can realize something here from what is not said. God could have revealed to us exactly how the world was made. He could have provided every detail but he did not. What is important to God he repeats. In the first chapter of Genesis we see the unity, the personality and power of God from the very first verse.

What God does reveal to us is our origin, created in his image. This is what he elaborates on and the story of us is amazing.

Would you like to hear more? My close friend thought I should have two blogs. She advised me that I would lose my friends if I write these things. Will you leave or will you consider? Have you ever heard this before? Does it interest you? What if I write about my studies once a week?

I am finding that as I study this it calls to me. I want to know more. I think about these things meditate on things. As I do this something in me is changing. The cup looks half full instead of half empty. My home fills me with gratitude instead of wanting. My spirit is resting in a calm place. Instead of looking at others to find fault my heart warms to them. I see them as one to love.
The word of God does not return void. In the place of my darkness and chaos God can speak peace washing me with the water of his word. Any words of His have the power to transform. They all create peace. We were not created for chaos. We were created to experience relationship.
What a mystery. I remember to this day when this miracle unfolded in my understanding.
I wept and listened to Judy Collins singing Amazing Grace over and over for a long time.
I basked in the flood of clean peace and I marveled at the why of it all. Why would God do this? Why would he care? Why would he make any of this in the first place?
I felt it in my beginning. The love of God and his peace. What about you where do you stand?