Blessings: Genesis 1:20-25
How will you respond to God’s blessing? God’s hand is as generous as it is loving. He wants our life to have meaning, and meaning is best when it comes from Him. How will the generous hand of God affect your life today?
We arrive at day five of the creation story. It is worth pausing for a second to think about this fact. Except for plants, God didn’t create anything that was alive over the first four days. God dealt with quantities like light and darkness, water and earth, Heaven and the terrestrial. God spent four of the six days creating on a very grand scale. Now that we turn to day five, God gets to the fine details. Only now do we see God creating the myriad of life in the sea and the sky.
Another intriguing element to the story comes into play in these verses. Not only does God create and call His creation good, but He also blesses the creation. He encourages the creatures He has created to fill the earth. Now that God is to the point of creating the kind of life that has the capacity to make choices, interact with the environment, and perhaps even think or feel, it is time for God to consider more than simply ordering creation.
God brought order out of the chaos so His creation would have a place to thrive. God didn’t create us to live on a harsh rock and to struggle as we tried desperately to cling to existence. God created a lush world with plentiful resources for life. When God creates, He creates with us in mind. The creation is meant to be enjoyed.
God is also furthering his preparations for the pinnacle of creation. Human beings need food, water, and shelter to survive as was discussed earlier. Human beings also need something to do. We need to feel productive. Our lives need a purpose. As God creates, He makes things for us to do. Livestock needs to be managed. Plants need to be harvested. Animals need to be domesticated. With each day the creation grows more complex, and each day implies more for God’s pinnacle of creation to do.
It may feel like we are a far cry from the days of creation. Not many of us manage livestock anymore. Not many of us regularly hunt for food or forage for berries and nuts and fruit. Instead, we fill our lives with other things to manage such as technology, bank accounts, and our entertainment. While we may have come far from creation – and people are welcome debate the pros and cons of this – the lesson in Genesis is still valid. God has blessed us. He wants our lives to be full of things that enrich us and satisfy us. Like the fish in the oceans and the birds in the air, He has blessed us. How will you respond to God’s blessing?
