Reflections from Tuesday, May 9, 2006

As an Aside:

I wish we had started this Blog from the beginning! I desire to keep a record of our discussions together as well as providing a place to virtually continue this dialogue while physically apart! I hope to post details of past discussions in the near future.

Reflections on our conversation, Tuesday, May 9, 2006:

"I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth."

Saint Augustine wrote in his Confessions:

• I asked the earth and it answered me, 'I am not He.' And whatsoever things are in it confirmed the same. I asked the sea and the deeps and the living creeping things, and they answered, 'We are not thy God, seek above us.' I asked the morning air, and the whole air with its inhabitants answered, '...we are not thy God.' I asked the heavens, sun, moon, stars, 'Nor' say they, 'are we the God whom thou seekest.' And I replied unto all the things which encompass the door of my flesh, 'Ye have told me of my Go that ye are not He: tell me something more of Him.' And they cried out with a loud voice, 'He made us.'

We spent much time discussing our (humanity's) place in creation. The word "creature" is from the same root word as "create." We are part of creation, yet hold a very special place within the creation.

Millard J. Erickson's in his opus, Christian Theology says:

• While God did not have to create, he did so for good and sufficient reasons. He had a purpose in bringing reality into being. And the creation fulfills that purpose of God. In particular, the creation glorifies God by carrying out his will. The inanimate creation glorifies him (Psalm 19:1-4); the animate creatures obey his plan for them. In the story of Jonah, we see this in rather vivid fashion. Everyone and everything (except Jonah) obeyed God's will and plan: the storm, the dice, the sailors, the great fish, the Ninevites, the east wind, the gourd, and the worm. Each part of creation is capable of fulfilling God's purposes for it, but each obeys in a different way. The inanimate creation does so mechanically, obeying natural laws which govern the physical world. The animate creation does so instinctively, responding to impulses within. Man alone is capable of obeying God consciously and willingly, and thus glorifies God most fully. p. 373
  

We bear a special place within creation for we were created Imago Dei, in the Image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). More than that, as the chorus of the song we listened to declares, "You are fearfully, wondrously, gloriously, lovingly made." God knows us personally, completely, and intimately (Psalm 139:13-16).

How can that be??? As we reflect upon the immensity of creation, we declare along with Calvin:
"I'M SIGNIFICANT! ....screamed the dust speck." - Calvin and Hobbes

In the words of the Psalmist: "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is humanity that you are mindful of us, the human beings that you care for us?" (Psalm 8:3-4). Creation is so vast, what are we that the Creator is mindful of us - mere specks of dust dwelling upon a speck of dust?

However, we the creatures - no matter how insignificant we might consider ourselves -have been invited to join the Creator in the process of RECREATION! Humanity is not broken and in need of a repair - humanity is dead and in need of a resurrection (recreation). We fervently believe that "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Corinthians 5:17). THIS is the very message and ministry which we have been given (read 2 Corinthians 5:17-20)! We are His ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us!

So we join Him in bringing life from death. Wholeness from brokenness. Dancing where there was once mouring. We let our "light shine before men, that they may see [our] good deeds and praise [our] Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). Our role as creatures and as His ambassadors is to see, "your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10).

When we join in with Him in His recreative activity, people will notice. As lives are changed by His power, as we stand against injustice, and we offer hope to the hopeless, as we feed the hungry and clothe the naked, as we restore creation to it's intended design (recreating it to reflect "His will being done") our light will shine before men and we might point beyond ourselves to the Creator who desires to recreate all men and women through a new birth (John 3:3).

Moreover, as we creatures are reconnected with our Creator, we a freed and liberated to become what we were truly meant to be (His will being done in our lives, becoming who He made and designed us to be).

God is inherently creative - He paints every sunset, He molded the giraffe, elephant, and platypus, He designed the intricacies of the atom. Becoming reconnected to Him should liberate and inspire us to greater feats of creativity! We are connecting to Him who at the very core of His being is creative. The creator must be the ultimate creative! We best reflect Him when we are creative as well!

Other verses for consideration:
1 Corinthians 8:6, Genesis 1:1, Psalm 96:5, Isaiah 37:16, 44:24, 45:12, Jeremiah 10:11-12, Romans 2:12-16

OK, OK, enough already! PLEASE, Your thoughts...