God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. Genesis1:31
The word "good" appears seven times in Gen 1:
- v4 God saw that the light was good
- v10 And God saw that it was good (land and sea)
- v12 And God saw that it was good (plants and trees)
- v18 And God saw that it was good (sun, moon and stars)
- v21 And God saw that it was good (fish and birds)
- v25 And God saw that it was good (livestock and ground creatures)
- v31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. (Everything)
There is beauty, magnificence and majesty that permeates all of creation. In spite of the blight of sin's brokenness, the goodness of creation still recharges our souls when we walk on the beach, stroll through the forest or hike through the mountains.
Even if we were to argue that it is simply the earth rotating on its axis and the various colours of the visible light spectrum bending to different extents around the curvature of the earth and being filtered by the dust and smog in the atmosphere, sunsets and sunrises still move us in deep and inexplicable ways.
Even though we can explain a rose by photosynthesis and plant genetics, it doesn't change the fact that we are filled with a sense of awe and a sense of well-being when we look at it.
We can explain that a lion is just a big cat and that the elephant is an unusual genetic specimen (it's nearest relative being the dassie) but when the lion roars and the elephant trumpets our senses stand at attention and it is as if we are suddenly more alive.
God is GOOD - in the most ultimate sense. Creation is pregnant with that goodness - as we experience its goodness we get just a fleeting sense of how incredibly good God is!!!
And so we come back to the idea of Leviathan frolic-ing in the vast ocean God created for that purpose. Our awesomely good God has made a beautifully good world for us to glimpse just some of His GOODness - let's learn to open our eyes and to FROLIC.
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That brings us to the end of this series - hope you enjoyed it. Any suggestions for the next series?
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Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
