My brain is so tired. I have studied, for now, all that I can to understand God's creative work. How mind-blowing! My heart has been thrilled in worship through the time spent reading as many sources of scientific research as I can manage. Someday, I may return...it is endless. The sources were of great variety. The theories of science do not cause me to dismay but to tear up with awe. Yes, I studied some Darwin and disciples. Yes, I read an "evolutionist/creationist", and of course my past if full of pure creationism. I have also tried to be true to the Hebrew meanings behind words like: "created", "let there be", "made" etc.
I am convinced that I could spend more than the rest of my life in this study and still end up affirmed and confirmed that:
God is
and God is great.
My writing cannot reveal all that has transpired in my heart and mind and more than ever before, I have a deep sense of both the limits and vastness of the universe and humanity. 
How did the world begin? With God communicating Himself through what He made. We are driven, in a very small but similar way to communicate ourselves through creativity...a making of something new. I offer this paraphrase of Gen.1, not as an authority but as a meager meditation of the new things He is teaching me. I hope readers will go read and tire their own brains with the in-exhaustive work of God, the Creator
...their Creator.

"In the beginning, God shaped something new...the heavens and the earth.
"And God said, (to his creation) now is the time to produce light"...and His creation obeyed.
God saw that it was the right thing at the right time.

Next, God stretched out the heavens and called to the waters and there was a surface to His creation...a line of distinction between God and His universe.

Then, God spoke again..."Now, waters collect into seas so that this gravel becomes land mass."
And again God could see the goodness of what was happening.
He knew the time had come to release out of the earth, the simplest forms of life. And all the life-giving potential He produced within the earth, "in the beginning", shot up through the soil, and multiplied.

On the fourth day, it was time to attend to the heavens again because the vegetation would need just the right amount of light and darkness. There was a perfect balance necessary for earth to sustain life. God, Himself accomplished this perfect balance.

And so the earth was ready for more complex life and again He made something new, living beings. He filled the sea and the sky with them, creatures to move and breathe. God was very pleased.

Ah, now...the excitement growing, God produced again from the earth something even more amazing...more intricate: "beasts of the earth". As the chains of DNA dictated different kinds, life multiplied again into creatures with unique systems to live on the land. God observed His work, "good...but not finished".
...not finished because even amidst all of that wonder there was still nothing to represent all that God was, all that He is. Even these beautiful beasts lacked the capacity to know Him...relate to Him.
So God the Father conversed with His Son and His Spirit and together, they made man. At last, God could have relationship beyond Himself. He could extend his love, His joy, His understanding to man...thinking, feeling, relating, discerning man. 

Man partnered with God that day to continue organizing creation. All of that life-force would need constant attention to keep it running well. Man is God's chosen manager of His creative work. But man, a masterpiece of God's likeness, would do better in partnership too. Man alone could not multiply. Man alone could not fully reflect the complexity and beauty of God. God began with Adam but He completed His image with Eve. 
The eco-system would now function in perfect harmony.
God took it all in. "This is good beyond good." 

There was now nothing to add, nothing to perfect, so God enjoyed it all. 

Thursday, June 12, 2014
The alarm goes off.
I ,with a great deal of discomfort, wake up...
minutes later I force myself to go wake up my seventeen year-old...who can sleep through three alarms encircling his head.
I go back to bed, asking why morning has to hurt.
Two minutes go by, my husband gets up to give more encouragement to the teenager.
He comes back to bed.
Twenty minutes go by; I hear my son leave...and I again make myself rise and attempt to shine...although I know the shine wont come for at least another two hours, if at all.

Day 5 of creation...exact date unknown
God's voice sounds off.
The earth, with a great deal of energy, wakes up...
Minutes later the waters teem and the skies are filled.
...life rises from the ocean bed 
and shines.

I keep thinking of U2's album title "Rattle and Hum". The earth must have rattled and hummed with the bursting of life. There was an exuberant explosion of what had never been...creature life.
How long exactly did it take for single celled organisms to produce such complex organisms? Well, God had already set the sun and the moon above to "govern" the day. So I take it to mean within a 24 hour day. Impossible to natural science...I know. 
I have to allow that "In the beginning" could have been billions of years ago, but once the sun and moon are set on the fourth day, my flexibility ends. One scientist offered that life was delivered to earth from another being...but could not bring himself to admit it must be God. 
The theories fly like the birds and swarm like the fish...but only one is true. The creation of the world is history...and although none of us was there to witness it, there are not multiple true accounts. There is one.
I am not arrogant enough to think I can say exactly how God did it...
but I believe this
God said...
and it was so.

P.S. A little tidbit from John MacArthur- "Some birds navigate by the stars when migrating. How do they know how to do that? In fact, birds raised from eggs inside a building where they have never seen the sky can orient themselves toward home when shown an artificial sky representing a place they've never been."
Amazing...DNA programs even the birds to know their true home. God has done the same for the human race...but we just refuse to look up.

“Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the heights above. Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his heavenly hosts. Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars. Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created. He set them in place for ever and ever; he gave a decree that will never pass away.” (Psalm 148:1-6)

Day 4, God gets specific. 

In a flurry of cosmic dust, God dots the galaxy with stars and sets up a system in which human beings will live. Marking out days, seasons, years and acting as a broadcast of His power to the universe; the expanse is filled and organized.

The clocklike organization of the universe runs as God created it to run. The sun rises and sets, the moon progresses through its phases, stars are born and die and we live and breathe by the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and heat energy they emit. Praise God for His solar system!

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” (Psalm 19:1-4)

Being made in His image, My husband likes filling our little part of the universe with systems. We are naturally disorganized people; systems help us to function more effectively...if we maintain them! He cries regularly about how the members of His household wreck his systems. When the next panic arises due to disregarding the systems, a flurry of accusations and excuses swirl.

"That's why I made the system! Respect the system...maintain the system!" Poor Phil, he tries so hard!

God did not stop ordering life on the planet with the solar system. There are natural laws and there are spiritual laws that we are subject to...whether we think them true and effective or not. He is not susceptible to people messing with His systems, like Phil, but His creation is. Our stubborn independence won't alter His ultimate purposes but it will ruin us! Funny that in our days and nights we think we can disregard God's systems and blame Him for the resulting panic and disorder!  When living within His systems, we live and breathe in hope-filled order. 

When living outside His systems, we suffer. Read Romans 1! God made life here to run like a finely tuned machine. If we mess with the system, we find ourselves without excuse and no one else to blame!

 "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God...professing to be wise they became fools...They exchanged the truth of God for a lie...God gave them over to degrading passions...receiving in their own persons the penalty for their error...and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind... " Rom. 1:20-21a,22,25a,26a,28a.

Life

sprouting, spreading

This is what stumps cynics...spontaneous life from non-living matter.
As the waters found their boundaries by the word of God...so life came into existence.
"Let the earth sprout..."
Just the right words at just the right time produced life to shelter and nurture more life.
It was good.
It was God.
 Dormancy birthed germination. Shoots of green leapt through the soil, turning the earth into a habitat.
 Words speaking life, and life producing more life.
I wish my life and words brought life all the time. But the truth is sometimes, even if unintentionally, my words have produced nothing of vibrancy or nourishment. Regret alone cannot reverse the damage of my words, death coming from the non-living places of my heart and right out of my mouth...or the keys of my keyboard.
But living from non-living...this is miraculous. And I ask God, "speak life...here, now. Please, produce spontaneous life from what my words have smothered."
Dormant soil in the hands of the Creator can still sprout something He can call "good",
something that nurtures
life...and stumps cynics.

⁹ And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry land Earth,^[d] and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

¹¹ And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants^[e] yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so.¹² The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ¹³ And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

Like an artist gathering supplies, God made the heavens and the earth. It was all there. All of the particles that would bump and mingle to make His idea of creation a reality. The invisible was becoming visible. God set up shop and got to work. Bringing order to chaos, He made the raw materials then made the most wondrously complex system of life from them. The light rained down bringing heat, increasing energy and then He drew the water up and made the atmosphere. And this, God called "Heaven". An atmosphere suddenly surrounded a hydrosphere...a vapor encircled a watery, gravely globe. "He stretched out the heavens like a curtain" Is.40:22, providing a protection for the living to come. There was evening, there was morning- day 2.

"The height of the heavens should mind us of God's supremacy, and the infinite distance that is between us and him; the brightness of the heavens, and their purity, should mind us of his majesty, and perfect holiness; the vastness of the heavens, and their encompassing the earth, and influence upon it, should mind us of his immensity and universal providence." Wesley's Explanatory Notes

The more I dig into the grounds of my faith, the more I am convinced of the truth of it. Just as light "exploded into light", faith explodes into faith. I am not a scientist; but astronomy, geology, chemistry, biology, physics (etc.) in and of themselves provide few conclusions.... only more questions. It is not science alone that proves or disproves God and creation...it is faith. It is where you find your beginning. My beginning is "in the beginning God"...from there I am amazed and overwhelmed 
at the proof of Him.

Clouds
Sinking to inverted rim
Fraying edges...
tearing free.
Revealing
rising
upward
onward
forever.
Arcing center
stretching
drawing
summoning,
me.

"Let there be light..." Gen. 1:2-5

Atoms gyrated, pulsed and pooled-
an incoherent pit.
Ingredients of life restrained,
and champing at the bit.
 Beneath the skin of darkness,
cells and systems waited word
while the stirring of His Spirit
 trained and fluttered like a bird.
"Let there be light"came thund'ring,
without ears to hear the clap
 Fingered filiments came spiraling
and pulled the darkness back.
Light exploded into light
as God sighed in delight
and placed the edge of darkness
 beside day
and called it "night".

"In the beginning God created..."

"In the beginning God created"- The initiation of time was God's act of creating. Before anything else, before everything else
 He was.
God is the pre-existant condition on which everything else hinges.
There was God
then...
then God created. 
He made what wasn't there before:
the heavens
and the earth.

The heavens and the earth traveled from the mind of God to become a vast universe that we only know in part.

This is one quality of God I really wish I had...to make ideas realities.
God had an idea.
God made it reality.
What was only in his mind was brought into physical existence...
Something to be seen
Something to be heard
Something to be touched, smelled, felt
of God.
All of these somethings a communication of His beauty, power, tenderness, goodness.
All of these somethings the pronouncement of His reality.
"In the beginning, God created..." Genesis 1:1