Day 3: Created to create

Genesis 2

There is so much to take out of Genesis 2. Today, however, I would like to focus on three sections highlighting the creativity of God and His desire for us to participate in this process.

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done (Gen 2v2-3) 

I was struck by the fact that God had to rest from creating. Imagine creating so much in a week that you have to rest from this process? We work all week, get exhausted and then contemplate how we can unwind on the weekend by doing something creative because the week's work is often so non-creative. I rush off on a regular occasion on a Saturday to buy an Ideas magazine, for just the thought of being so creative gives me great pleasure. Being made in the image of God,I believe there is an inward dwelling desire in us to create - this may be through innovative thinking, fluid speech or crafting beauty out of our hands or bodies.

I have no doubt this is God's desire. He calls us to participate in the  process, bringing to us his creative appointments and then observing with great delight as he gives us the autonomy to breath life into what he has appointed us to do. Just look at this powerful scripture:

Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals (Gen 2v19-20) 

At the dawn of time, when science and language were undeveloped, God's appointment for Adam is to name what He had made. Two things strike me here.

• First, who in their right mind would leave the naming process up to someone else when they have put all the effort in making it? You are not exactly going to let your neighbour name your child after the pain of giving birth, are you? But God in his humble love and desire to see us participate with Him, gives mankind this privilege. In an act of utter grace, he lovingly brings the animals to Adam, stands back and observes with great joy what name Adam will come up with for each of His creatures. 
• Second, this naming process is one gigantic feat. Even if we go for a very very conservative figure of just mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles then this would be about 31000 species in the world to name  (http://www.currentresults.com/Environment-Facts/Plants-Animals/number-species.php). If we were to expand this to all known vertebrate animals and invertebrate animals this would take us to 1,4 million and then if you went further and considered new estimates of all created living species on earth 8,7 million (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14616161)!! If we take the very conservative 31000 in light of the current number of words in the English Oxford Dictionary at 171,000, Adam would have had to have had to have come up with the equivalent of 18% of our known English language. I suspect he would have had to have been VERY creative. 

We must not forget that it is God's desire for us to create in work. When he made the earth, functionality was not the only requirement of his work process, but things were to be both aesthetic and functional. It was never the intention for these two factors to be divorced from one another. 

God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground - trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food (Gen 2v9)

Today as you go about your work, whatever it may be, know that God takes delight in our working and desires for us to participate in it with great creativity. He is cheering us on to innovate, think abundantly and do our jobs better each day. This is consistent with His image within us.