What's Good About It?

The earliest evaluation God ever made of this world was that "It was good." (Genesis 1) This simple statement acts like a refrain, almost poetic, announcing the Creator's pleasure in the world he designed and built.

We think we understand what it means. Good is good. It is everything that's not bad. But we need to remember what we're talking about here - a world untouched by anything but God. A world that is being evaluated by the One who made it. So what is "good?" Is it "beautiful" or "right" or "perfect" or just what?

You might not think finding a definition is especially important, but it is. If we could get a grasp of the original design, if we could see what God saw on the day he rested from all he had made and watched it with unbounded joy, maybe we could understand the difference between what he planned and made at the beginning, and the world we've inherited.

So what did God mean by "good?" First, that it was built according to plan. If creation's goodness means nothing else, it surely says that God's blueprint was fully and in every detail brought to life in the physical world. What God made was what he planned to make.

Ancient Gnosticism tried to deny this crucial truth by arguing that God formed the earth through intermediary powers so that he could not be touched by, nor blamed for, the innate corruption of physical matter. But nothing of this is seen in the creation account. God planned the world and he made it and he is responsible for it because it is his, built exactly to his design.

More to come....

Witness

We had heard rumors of a waterfall to the east of Rolley Lake, but my son Shawn and I had never searched for it on our regular rambles in the area. The day we set out to find it, neither of us expected very much. The stream that ran out of the Lake was shallow and flowed slowly. No waterfall was marked on our map.

Following the stream, we noticed faint signs of others who had also taken up the quest. But there was no real path to follow. As we went, the land began to slope downward. The water running beside us picked up its tempo.

Then suddenly it was there. The whole earth fell away in front of us, and a wild torrent of water (where had all the water come from?) plunged a hundred or more feet down into nowhere. It roared and twisted, foam-white, cutting deeply through rock and over the cliff. This was not nature in its bountiful/delightful mode. This was gut-wrenching nature that turned my son and I instantly into minuscule specks on an infinite landscape. This was nature that made you shudder with its power. You wanted to cut yourself off from it for fear of being dragged down into its roaring energy. Beautiful, yes. But the beauty of awe and terror that puts you in your place.

Going down the slope beside it, we found that darkness was coming faster than we'd anticipated. We had only a few more moments to stare at the deep pool at the bottom, which seemed capable of absorbing any amount of cascading water. Then we went home.

Were we different for our discovery? I think so, just as each of us is shaped by similar rare encounters with creation unchained. It may be difficult to explain the experience, but it has something to do with a recognition that we are not masters of all we survey, that we are not the captains of our fate.

In essence, it's an encounter with God. No, nature isn't divine. We know that. But nature serves as a witness to God, to make him apparent to the world through its testimony to his glory and his supreme desire to nurture his creation. That's a reality worth pursuing.