Yes.  He did.  And we are here, only by His gracious act of creation.  If you have been following along with the posts and especially the commentary the last couple of weeks you are aware that creation has been discussed and I hope will continue to be.  No one is denying the fact of creation, just how to interpret the narrative we have that portrays it.  This post is not about creation in a wider sense.  It is about the many questions I have read out there in cyberspace asking what God created.

There is the question asking, did God create evil?  Another asks, did God create sin?  What about, did God create time?

Some believe He created evil and sin for example, so that we can experience good and His mercy.  Some believe He had to create time because He does not experience duration or sequence because He is infinite, but because we are finite we had to have time created to experience the same.  Some of these concepts are definitely brain twisters and the most vocal of the believers in these things end most of the discussions with the argument of God being so far beyond, above, mysterious, and such that we should not attempt to even ponder them.  Logic seems to have no place for determining what God is like.

I have other questions.  If we need evil to experience good, then how in the heavens are we going to experience good in eternity?  Isn’t the promise that evil will be gone?  Is evil a noun; is it something with independent existence?  Or is it just what occurs when Gods ways are not followed? The same goes for sin.  Isn’t it really just a turning from the path God set before us, missing the mark, as it is defined?

God is good because he said so.  Good has independent existence because God exists.  But God never, ever, said He was evil.  Isn’t evil really just a measurement, as is sin, of how much we are unlike God or how far we or our actions are from Him.  Did God create large, small, sweet, sour, pretty, ugly and such, or are these just descriptives and measurements of the things He did create?  Evil and sin are not things.  They are what things that are created do.

Time is in the same ballpark.  It is a measurement of sequence and duration.  Again, do we say that God created height, or depth, or diameter?  Or aren’t these just concepts that we use to relate to creation?  To me, time fits this description.  I once thought of God as timeless and above and outside time and it gave me nothing but headaches.  Upon further study, prayer, reflection and discussion I have come to the conclusion that this is a manmade concept and is not only unbiblical, it actually goes against much of the biblical witness.

As I read the love letter to mankind that we call the bible, I see a God that desires relationships with His creations.  I see a God that experiences sequence and duration.  A God that asks things like, how long?  How much?  When?  All of these things point far away from timelessness.  In eternity, if God does not experience time, meaning duration and sequence, then how will we relate to Him then?  It will be no better than it is here.

God is everlasting to everlasting.  God simply always was and always is and always will be.  He is the Alpha and the Omega, which are actually finite terms meaning the beginning and the end.  These do not point to timelessness either.  They actually point us to the fact that we find our beginning and ending only in Him.

Did God create…?

As far as evil, sin, and time go, I say no.  It just does not fit the picture of the Father that Jesus painted for us.  Instead we find that He is good, He is perfect, and He will be there with us and for us.  Hallelujah.

Love you all

I believe at the fall, when Adam turned everything over to the enemy, it somehow affected all of creation.  How that could possibly be so, I haven’t got a clue.  But in Romans 8:22  we are told that creation groans and is either working strenuously or as if in the pain of childbirth.  And according to what the ladies say, there might not be much worse pain than that. 

What is creation waiting for?  It is waiting and groaning and screaming out in pain to be released from the bondage of corruption.  (Romans 8:21)  So our sin corrupted all of God’s perfect creation. 

That last statement has a problem though.  Was creation perfect?  I know I have thrown that statement out in a lot of different applications.  I have even thought about saying to cabinet customers that complained about knots and mineral stains in wood doors that it was Adam’s fault.  When creation was perfect, there weren’t any knots.  I must ask for forgiveness about that. 

There is only one perfect.  He is the creator.  And could He create Himself?  Note the title. 

God never claimed a perfect creation.  He did say it was good.  He even proclaimed it to be very good when He was done.  But it was not perfect.    We probably even know this.  But we do not express it in our thoughts or words very well. 

The point I am trying to make is simple.  A lot of the time, in thoughts and words, we believe there is nothing that God cannot do.  We throw around the word omnipotence like it means that there is nothing outside of Gods capabilities.  I believe that is wrong.  And I do not see this view as belittling God either. 

Take this spiritual battle that I believe God to be in.  To say that it causes God no strain or stress is to actually make it out to be nothing.  If God is not genuinely fighting, then the battle is not real. 

When my boys were little, in a few of my less self focused moments, we would wrestle around.  It was not a real battle between my five year old and me.  But today, with their ages ranging from 20 to 30, it would be a real battle.  There is nothing wrong with the implications that God is in a serious struggle.  He limits Himself from using the power He does have at His disposal because of his love. 

I also believe God has to work at maintaining creation.  I think it is probably a little like running machinery for us.  For any of you that make your living this way, think about how it seems to get harder and harder the older a machine gets.  Well, creation is getting a little age on it. 

Everything wears out.  Our cars wear out.  Our clothes wear out.  Our toothbrush wears out.  Our body wears out.    Creation seems to be wearing out. 

At the end of the book of Job, God asks Job a series of questions.  These questions are rhetorical, with the intent of letting Job know exactly how much bigger God is than any of us could imagine.  But we can also ascertain that God is actively on the job also.  He is not just lounging around in the throne room.  

There is nothing perfect about creation.  And it is not even very good anymore, thanks to us.  But we can thank God that He is still at work.  Managing and maintaining and fighting to keep creation going for us all. 

Next time your job seems to be too much, thank Him that you do not have His.

Love you all

***Your comments are welcome.***