And He Loved Us...

Yorkshire and Genesis

I spent the last few days in Yorkshire, more specifically the Jonas Centre in Redmire which is in Wensleydale. The first few days I was there was for the Connect Days. I am currently living in Manchester England under an internship programme called Connect. I have spent two years in Canada doing this same programme under the name LeaderQuest and am now doing a third year. At this point is beginning to look like a career move for me!

From Wednesday to Friday we discussed a book called the Drama of Scripture with the goal of looking at God's redemptive plan as a narrative and where we fit into the story. A large part of this was looking at our creation as well as our fall as mentioned in the story of creation in Genesis chapters 1 and 3. What I want to look at really is the first two chapters and what we can learn about ourselves and what God intended for us from those two chapters and I would like to start with a quote given to us during those Connect Days from the Children's Storybook Bible.

"And when God saw them He was like a new dad. 'You look like Me,' He said. 'You're the most beautiful thing I've ever made!' God loved them with all of His heart. And they were lovely because He loved them."

What an amazing quote! When I heard this during our morning prayer time I fell in love with how well these few words managed to capture what God was doing in His creation! The creation story has grown in its significance for me over these last few months, and even more so over the last few weeks as we have taken a rather in depth look into what it means for us. I have been learning a lot about our relationship with God and with one another and with the world around us through this story, as well as our worth. The best way that I can sort of sum it up is in my own experience as a writer. As a writer, when I make a story, I don't like to fill it with needless characters. I don't want to put in things that don't drive the plot onward or take the reader anywhere in the story. Each character I write into the story has a purpose and is meant to be there and is not there by mistake. This is how I view the creation story and this is how I view God's narrative. We are characters in His story and we gain a lot in understanding this. One of the first and most important things is that we learn we are not a mistake and rather that we are intentional. God took a look at His story and decided that it would not be complete without us. God's story is about revealing the heart of its author to people and He chose to do so through characters that could reflect Him in such a way. We see this in the creation story in Genesis.

Lovely because we are loved... 

In the story of creation God begins to create the heavens and the earth and all that dwell within them. I like to think that even during this creation these things were a reflection of the heart of our creator. As an artist or a writer I like to think that the work I make is a reflection of where my heart is at. I like to write stories that reflect my mood and my feelings and I hope that when people read them that they get a small understanding of where I was when that story was written. It is the same thing when I draw a picture. I like to think that whatever it is that I was drawing was a reflection of a current moment for myself. Sometimes I feel adventurous or cartoony or expressive and that is reflected in my work, either way, when you look at or read some of the things I draw and write, you get a message put across to you. I believe the same thing applies in God's creation. Even the story of creation itself exudes majesty and creativity and love. God loves beauty and He loves the details and whenever I read the creation story I see things bursting into existence through song. This is my creative side kind of taking hold of the story. But amidst this all God created something and set it apart from the rest of His creation to exemplify Himself in a way the rest of it couldn't.

Man was made from the same stuff as the rest of creation, made from the dust of the earth, but with one glorious difference. God took man and breathed life into him. This breath of life is the largest difference between man and the rest of creation. We are set apart from the birds and the beasts and all that crawls and made in authority and given authority and designed to reflect God in relationships; in relationships with each other and with the world around us and most importantly, in our relationship with God and with Him being at the centre of our lives.


"But God saved the best for last. From the beginning, God had a shining dream in His heart. He would make people to share in His Forever Happiness. They would be His children, and the world would be their perfect home."

I may quote this Children's Storybook Bible a few more times, and again because of how much it grasps the heart of the creation story. God showed me over the course of these last few weeks as I did the bible study in preparation for the discussions we would have during the Connect Days, about His reflection in relationships. It is pretty cool to see how in the creation story we are created to be in relationship with God. We are designed to be in relationship with Him and we are designed to look over His creation and take care of it and foster it and develop it and encourage it. It is written that when Adam was created that God took him and placed him in the garden, where he could encourage all that was in it to grow and be beautiful. This is just my paraphrase, but it shows this idea that in the work man did with the creation God made there was a reflection of God; this idea that in everything we do, we reflect the God who made us and offer up our praise in worship in doing well what He set us apart for. But then God creates for us a suitable helper in Eve and a new relationship is born and yet another reflection of our Creator is given. And I think the best example of how this relationship was meant to work is at the end of Chapter 2 and during the fall of man in Chapter 3. 


It is said that Adam and Eve were naked and without shame. Lets not limit this nudity to physical nudity but to emotional, relational and spiritual nudity. They were who they were created to be, they understood this and they lived without shame because of it. Eve was created for Adam and their relationship with one another was affected by their relationship with God and was a reflection of that. But when the fall came, their relationship with the earth, with each other and with God became fractured. The very first thing they do is clothe themselves in their shame and hide from God. Then when confronted by God we see a shift of blame take place. Adam blames Eve, who was created for him, rather than take responsibility for his own actions. Eve then blames the devil for her choice. Yes the devil did tempt them but the blame game still takes place. This gives us an idea of how fractured our relationships became. We hid from God in shame and then we began to blame the things that were given to us.


A story of Redemption, Not Failure...

God's story is not a story of failure. It does not end with the fall of man, in fact it is during the fall of man that God lays out His plan to redeem man and restore creation to where it was always meant to be! God has not left us, and even in our brokenness He still places and immense amount of value on us. God's plan for mankind did not end with the fall, it continued with the promise of His son. Creation begins is process of Restoration with the death and resurrection of Jesus at the cross. What is the result of this?

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband."
Revelations 21:1-2

"And He who sits on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new.' And he said, 'Write, for these words are faithful and true.' Then He said to me, 'It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of water of life without cost."
Revelations 21:5-6

"Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying, 'Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb.' And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having all the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper."
Revelations 21:9-11

"I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it."
Revelations 22:22-24


I will be honest, I could have put the entire of chapter 22 from Revelations here but I wanted to put a few of the key points. God's story is a plan of redemption, and it is restorative, a return. I think Revelations 22 paints a beautiful picture of what life could have been like had there been no fall, and it paints a beautiful picture of what we are being redeemed to. We are not insignificant. God loves us, He loves us so much that He wrote us into His story, with intention and with purpose. I think that is one of the biggest things I have drawn from during these last few weeks. I am a character in God's story, and in that I have a role, and a purpose. And if I am a character in God's story, than so is everyone else, each person having been written in with love and with intention and the way I treat them is a reflection on the author. I want my role in this story to reflect upon the Lamp.