Genesis 1:11. ‘Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation; seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so.’
Tony Campolo is a well known American Baptist speaker, author, pastor and professor of Sociology. A number of years ago Dr. Campolo was speaking about how people view God creating all things. Tony then shared his thoughts about how God created.
Many people have this image of an all-powerful God, waving his arm out and presto, plants and trees magically appear across the land as far as the eye can see. As Dr. Campolo spoke, I began to understand why he didn’t see it happening this way. Tony shared an image of God as he delighted in everything that he created. He saw God as an artist who enjoyed the act of creating new things.
Imagine, for a moment, God creating the first daisy and then stepping back and taking delight in his creation. Then imagine that, being so pleased with the first one, God shouts out, “DO IT AGAIN.” Continue to imagine God shouting, “DO IT AGAIN,” until his desire to create daisies was fully satisfied.
Sure, God is, and was, capable of creating acres upon acres of daisies with a spoken word or a wave of an arm. Or, God could just as easily choose to take delight in creating every daisy, unique in its own way because he had spoken it into existence. After all, what is time to God who is everlasting?
Had God spoke all daisies into existence with a single utterance, each plant would be just another daisy, not unique at all. In Tony’s suggested scheme of creation, God took delight in each and every daisy created. Every single plant was something that He created because it gave him joy.
In Jeremiah 1:5, God told Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” God may not have chosen any of us to be prophets but he certainly knew each of us before we were formed in our mother’s womb.
To the most high God, you are somebody.