Daily Devotion, December 28, 2022

 

Devotion:

Read Genesis 1:27-31.

Books about “Scientists and Inventors” were favorites of mine! After reading, I would daydream about what I might invent!

But our scripture today goes way beyond “inventing” to telling us about our Creator creating! In verse 27, the word “created” is written three times! Genesis 2:7 gives the verse which might be more familiar. “The Lord formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” As the Psalmist writes in Psalm 100, “It is God who has made us and not we ourselves.”

The Bible begins by telling us our God is our Creator and from the beginning saw everything that he had made, including the humans, as “very good.” Within these verses we are reading today, God particularly gives to human beings the blessing to take care of the earth. And God is still in the creating business and invites everyone to become part of it.

Sometimes we reverse and misinterpret all of this. We think we are “god”, and we are the ones creating “god” in our own image. Sometimes we place ourselves in the role of the judge of the human beings of the earth and we decide who is “good” and who is “not good.” And sometimes, we hear the words to “rule over” the earth and we think we are to have power over God’s creation. We need to let God hold the power. Our role is to be good and faithful stewards by taking care of the earth.

God invites us to become a part of the creating process. We are called to be co-creators with God. This is not only being involved in creating “things” but in creating with God in many other ways, such as: creating communities, creating ways to alleviate poverty and hunger, creating water resources for communities which have none, creating solutions to our earth’s problems, creating ways for reconciliation, and creating peace.

Personal Worship Option:

James Weldon Johnson’s poem “Creation” written during the early 1900’s, utilizes the phrase after each stanza which says, “And God said, ‘that’s good!’” God created you and me and said, “That’s good!” And God blesses us today with the invitation to participate in creating good solutions to today’s problems…for the sake of others! Amen.