Thought for Today
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
This morning, when I turned on the faucet to fill the coffee pot, we had almost no water pressure. The tap which normally, dependably gushes a virtual torrent of fresh, cold water only provided an anemic trickle of water. Thankfully, I was able to eventually fill the pot and make our morning coffee. When I checked our town’s website, there was an alert of a watermain break. Although not in our immediate vicinity, that break evidently lowered the system pressure throughout much of our area.
Most of us who live in towns and cities have become accustomed to having certain services and utilities provided with little or no effort on our part beyond paying regular bills. Water, sewage, electricity, gas, and trash removal are provided by our town’s version of a Department of Public Works or some similar entity. Often gas and electrical services are provided on an area-wide basis. We have clean, fresh water at the simple turn of a valve handle. We can plug our devices into a wall outlet and receive instant power.
When something goes amiss, we can place a simple telephone call or send an email and seek redress. This morning, I left a message on the Water Department’s answering machine. Before our coffee finished brewing, the Water Department had restored full system pressure to most of our area and posted an alert on the town’s website.
For much of what we depend on in our lives, some similar process is often available. If you have a landline phone, the phone company has a website for you to alert them of trouble. So too the gas company, the electric company and other departments furnishing town utilities and services. I do find it a bit more troubling when I try to report some issue with my internet access. Our ISP does have a way to report problems online . . . but when I have a problem getting online I cannot use that reporting system!
That verse above from Revelation is part of the New Testament passage we will look at this coming Sunday. I must admit that this morning, as I feared being unable to perk our morning coffee, I hoped that the “new heaven and a new earth” would come with a more dependable water system. Although I’m not sure there will be coffee in eternity, or even whether or not we will want or need coffee then, I’m not ready to face that dilemma just yet.
What I am ready to face and to think about this morning is the reality and the magnitude of the creation story in Genesis. We talked a bit about this last night during our Bible Study; about the fact that our Creator God created all that is and did so as a manifestation of God’s love. “Creatio ex nihilo (Latin, 'creation out of nothing') is the doctrine that matter is not eternal but had to be created by some divine creative act.” (en.eikipedia.org) Christians and Jews believe that creative act was done by God.
That doctrine of creatio ex nihilo means that everything we see around us . . . and everything we cannot see but which is around us, is an expression of God’s love. All created for our benefit and use, simply because God is love. Our solar system’s sun, our planet, its atmosphere, all of the flora and fauna are there because “God so loved the world.” We don’t have to worry about turning on the air each morning. All of our science and technology which help us understand the universe are merely aids to help us try to understand God’s love. We don’t need any of them to make sure the earth continues in its rotation, to make sure the sun shines in the sky and the moon appears at the appropriate times.
John 3:16 helps us understand that there are no limits to God’s love. That well known verse is our pale human attempt to describe the boundless love of our God. And, we don’t even need websites or emergency phone numbers to report problems, because God continues to provide.
Stay safe, thank God today, trust God,
Pastor Ray