Day 83 — Creation By Words
Psalm 19: 1-6, The Message
God’s glory is on tour in the skies,
God-craft on exhibit across the horizon.
Madame Day holds classes every morning,
Professor Night lectures each evening.
Their words aren’t heard, their voices aren’t recorded,
But their silence fills the earth: unspoken truth is spoken everywhere.
God has made a huge dome for the sun – a superdome!
The morning sun’s a new husband leaping from his honeymoon bed,
The day breaking sun an athlete racing to the tape.
That’s how God’s Word vaults across the skies from sunrise to sunset,
Melting ice, scorching deserts, warming hearts to faith.
I used to regularly play squash. It is a fast game that requires you to react quickly to hit the ball away from your opponent. I would track the ball from the other player and consciously decide how to respond, my legs would react and step towards the oncoming ball, my arm would swing back and my shoulder would bring the stroke down, all the time keeping my eye on the ball. My mind was speaking to my body and creating a squash stroke. We can ‘speak’ and our bodies respond.
We can express our invisible thoughts in the creation of physical things. Our creations show something of ourselves - our thoughts, our feelings and our intentions. As we see how our own thoughts (inner words) translate into acts of creation we start to understand that God creates and rules through his word. As we realise what it means for his word to act, we can believe that God can have a personal, guiding relationship with us.
In the same way my body moves in response to my thoughts and intentions, God speaks objects into existence. In Genesis God created the earth by speaking. This is the creative power of God. The word of God is invisible and is the spiritual reality that produces all that is visible. The word of God – the thoughts and mind of God – continues its presence in the universe by upholding it. The events in the visible world – the unfolding of a tulip, the growth of a child, the sun vaulting across the sky in this Psalm – are a visible language of a creative mind and intimately present God. Who is interested in us, watches over us and who informs, admonishes and directs us.
Prayer — Thank you, Lord, that you created and sustain this world through your word, and that you are intimately present and interested in me.
Jonny Pearson