I Have to Confess... After Writing This, I Need A Nap!

My son once asked me why God created in 6 days instead of 8, or 3, or 10.  At the time I simply shrugged and said, “I’m not sure.”  I gave some thought to it and shared that the number 7 has great significance Biblically, and that God does what He wants to with purpose that is beyond our ability to understand sometimes.  You know, the pat answers that tend to be offered for the unexplained portions of Scriptures… “Mystery!”  In the years since though, I’ve given that interchange a lot of thought.


Recently I had the opportunity to share an evening in studying the Biblical creation texts in Genesis 1 & 2 with the congregation at one of the churches I’m appointed to.  During the dialogs, as generally happens, people began to have discussions around the amount of time that it “actually” took to form the world in the beginning.  Now whether you are in the young earth or old earth camp, there is a larger discussion that we sometimes miss in that debate that I think is probably more important on many levels.  That would be the question my son asked as to WHY God created in 6 days and rested on the 7th.  I have to confess, I honestly don’t know why.  And frankly, no one but the One who did the work could give you the definitive reason why it was done that way.  But I do have some considerations that a few years of reflection and learning the practice of Lectio Divina have opened to me.  So I thought I would share them here.

So why would the God of all power, not just get everything done instantly?  Why would He need more than an instant to set it all in place and into motion?  AND why would God need to take a day off afterward?  I think the answer may lie in understanding that when God created, it was with the intent to establish, and sustain life.  Celtic Christians celebrate the totality of creation in worship.  Not in a pantheistic manner (God IS creation), but in the realization that God created it all, and that all life is interdependent in order that it may continue.  They also understand that everything in the universe moves in a rhythmic way.  Here on Earth, tides ebb and flow.  The planet’s axial tilt and orbit around the sun cause seasonal changes.  Plants bloom and die and animals migrate in response to those changes.  And light and dark mark the passage of time during the Earth’s rotation in a way that let us know a division of day and night.  All of this is to say that in recognizing the truth of cycles and rhythms in nature, maybe the narrative of how God created it all, is a model for those who were created to follow for our own life sustaining practices.  In those revelations we discover a way to re-find the rhythms of living.

We in Western cultures tend to be less rested in general, and much more stressed as a whole.  If we look to the creation narratives then we may see a few key things of importance to our living:

1.      By creating periods of light and dark, God separates periods of work and rest. 

-        In our modern contexts, the fact that night falls is no longer a reason to quit working.  In fact, many businesses are open 24/7.  The internet and television are never “closed” unless there is a power failure or some other service interruption.  There is a definite change to human behaviors and health because of it.  We no longer find a stopping point to untangle ourselves from the toils of existing.  The wear and tear of constant use will exhaust our physical, emotional, and spiritual strengths if we don’t balance that use with renewal and replenishing.

To put it another way, if the energy that the Moon’s gravity exerted on the Earth’s oceans, never let up… tides would never cease their rising, and the land would be overwhelmed by water.  It is in the daily easing of that gravitational pull that balance is achieved, sustaining life that can’t exist under water.  The balancing ebb and flow between work and rest sustains life in much the same way.  If work never stops, the body will be overwhelmed by it, and in a sense drown in it.

2.      At the end of each day’s work in creating, God would stop and reflect on what had been accomplished for that day and decide that it was good.  We should too.

-       This is important.  God didn’t look at all that still had to be done and fret over it… He took time to appreciate what was finished.  How many of us do that daily?  How many of us have trouble going to sleep at night because we’re thinking about what we have to get done tomorrow or worse, next week?  Reflection at days end can allow us to realize that there may have been more good accomplished than we are aware of; which in turn gives us hope for tomorrow rather than dread of the morning’s to-do list.

That may also be why God would come to spend time with Adam and Eve at the end of the day… so they could tell Him all about all that they had encountered and experienced.  It gave them time to ask questions and seek counsel, and it allowed them to lay to rest any sense of things left undone that would create worry in His children.

3.      And, to my thinking, one the most important points… By establishing a day of Sacred rest, Sabbath, God gives us time to be renewed and empowered to move to the next set of tasks we will face.

-        The simple truth is, that God created humans in order to have relationship with them.  Relationships are fundamental in living.  (That’s why the only thing God deemed “not good” was that man was alone.)  Our relationships with one another take time to build and maintain… we have to be intentional in that if they are to remain healthy.  Our relationship with God is no different.  We are meant to spend time with and being renewed by God if we are to remain healthy. 

We get to find in our communing with our Creator, a reminder that we are loved.  We are embraced by Him in those moments for healing and strength… for guidance and hope… and for correction and restoration by, and to, righteousness we can’t achieve apart from Him.  In those sacred meetings, we are reminded that there is a purpose for our living… loving and being loved by God. 

I don’t know of any greater empowering realization for me than the fact that I am loved.  When we are loved, we are filled with a sense of hope beyond reason.  When we know that we are loved by our friends and family, it is a fuel to grow to be the people they see the potential for us to be.  When we know that we are loved by God, we begin to understand that there is nothing we can’t accomplish with His power flowing through us… and in that energizing and Sacred love, we are renewed for continued action.

In Ecclesiastes 3 we find the verses made famous by that Byrds song in the 60s, proclaiming that there is a time for every purpose under heaven.  There is a rhythm to life and living.  A time for everything.  If we choose to ignore God’s established rhythms then we find that living gets out of balance.  Our spirits get out of balance.  Our physical health gets out of balance… and they all pay a price.  God who is perfect, is incapable of losing perfect balance.  But His creations aren’t, so He, through His own example, gives us a model that we can follow that leads to health and life and vitality.  There is a time to work… and a job to be done; but there IS a time to rest and a time to be loved to balance it also.  

I would love to share more, but I think you may need rest from your reading, and I need rest from my writing… and we’ve probably both been on the computer for too long now.

May you find God’s rhythm for your living, and may it bring you health and hope today and for eternity.

Your servant in Christ,

Chris