Children experience the world from a different perspective. Everything is so much bigger than them. Toddlers crawl everywhere, stare at you and want to put everything in their mouth. It’s amusing the way they marvel at their environment. Their clear minds and open hearts take in the world’s wonders so readily that joy comes easy to them. The created world is far greater than us. Compared to it we are all but children with much to explore. Adulthood makes us forget that we live in a big, big world. Look keenly at the nature around you and feel as babe once more.
We start our day when the sun rises. Not knowing where it came from and having no say in where it will set, yet we plan our lives according to the day and night it gives. How little we take notice of the blessings we do not make.
The sky is so high above that we cannot comprehend its distance. Still falling droplets from it feeds our rivers. Then the little streams meet to fill our vast oceans. We are born into a world that runs with or without us, systems on autopilot.
There are trees that have been alive far longer than us. Mountains as old as the very foundations of the earth. Yet we are gifted the pleasure to sit under a shade and the strength to scale to the mountain peaks.
We till the ground but cannot turn seed to fruit. We simply plant, prune and harvest. We can’t even create the very water we use. Our provision doesn’t come from our work but from the mercy of another.
Summer and winter come by the calendar. They never miss a season. Like clockwork they are wound on someone else’s timeline.
Animals exist by the thousands. We probably won’t even encounter half of the species in our lifetime. Creatures great and small crawling, hopping, hibernating, feeding and always multiplying. They live and die without our notice. Some alive seemingly for no other purpose than to merely exist.
Then there’s you and me. We are not so mechanical. Our lives do not follow a set template. We were created free. Not just free but we were created with unique power. Humans build skyscrapers, dam rivers, domesticate and mutate animals, level mountains, reclaim islands, divert rivers and so much more. We don’t just live in the world as the rest of creation does, we rule it. We push civilization further with each passing generation.
Yet for all our innovations we never really create. We simply spend our lifetimes discovering what already exists. We are often too busy harnessing the earth’s resources to remember that we didn’t make the earth. It’s not something we like to think about because it humbles us. After all, how can our great minds compare to the one who designed our very bodies?
It’s easier to dismiss these great mysteries away, blaming it all on a chance “big bang”. But think curiously as a child for a moment. How did all this start? And more importantly; “why?”. Why are we given the privilege to enjoy a world we did not create? What’s so special about humankind that they can rule a world far bigger than they?
Genesis 1:26-31
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
The biblical narrative of creation is unique in that it tells us why humans are different from the rest of creation. On page one of the bible, it says we are made like the creator. It isn't just a fluke 'survival for the fittest' that humans are at the top of the food chain. It had to be intentional that one of the smallest and most perishable elements of creation rules creation. We make fire just as the creator made the sun, we irrigate deserts as our creator makes oases, we plant seed as our creator causes it to grow and just as we give birth to children who take after us, so the creator made us like himself. Creatures made to directly reflect the creator. We were created as his children, his heirs. Yes, we are like the creator, but we are not the creator. Human knowledge, great as it is, cannot for a moment comprehend the mind of the creator especially if we reject our sonship to him.
God’s sovereignty over creation is an awful teaching, indeed all great truths must inspire awe. This is where childlikeness is needed. Children do not feel supremely powerful, perfectly righteous, or totally autonomous. These are adult fantasies. Children are naturally humble because they recognize their helplessness. They willingly come under their parents. Adults considering the Christian faith will have experiences that take them way past the ability to be as innocent as children. God does not ask us to put aside our experiences but to change our attitude. Adult self-sufficiency must recognize its need for the sovereign God and adult skeptical toughness must soften before the loving God. We cannot know God without humility.
While many religions may have God as creator only Judaism and Christianity call him Father. To call God father is to acknowledge a particular relationship with him. Father is a term indicating authority in light of love. It is a personal title that only one’s child can use. The God of the bible is not an abstract force that made creation then abandoned it. He is deeply connected to his creation.
Later in the Genesis creation narrative we come to reject God’s fatherhood over us. Being made free we can walk away from our father and act in ways contrary to his likeness. That freedom to leave home is honored by God. The world was meant to be a ruled through God’s goodness but instead it is ruled by mankind who act in their own likeness. We can make good but it is so often mired in the bad. Our world is in the state it is because of our own actions. None of us is exempt from committing evil. We have all turned away from God’s goodness in small and grand ways. None can claim they are without sin. Thus, on our own we cannot call God our father.
As a good father cares for his children so our heavenly Father remembers his prodigal children. God seeks to renew the good world he made. How does he do this? By working with his appointed rulers; you, and me. We as his image bearers are an integral part of creation. To create a good world God must first create true goodness in his rulers. We are asked to lay down the very crowns we were given. To willingly come under our Father that we may be made his children once more. In this way we are adopted back to the sonship we walked away from. The God of the Bible is the Creator of all human beings, but he is only the Father of those who repent and accept his redemption through Jesus-the son of God. (Jesus is God and we will explore that truth in the next post.) We were created as children of God. Our Father’s promises to lead those who turn around back home into the new creation.
John 1:12-13: Yet to all who did receive him (Jesus), to those who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God- children not born of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.