We thank you Father for your wonderful love in that you have created everything good.
“In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth”
This one un-escapable fact seems to cause so many problems to the scientific community, yet it is fundamental to our being here. A lot of science is 'proven fact' based on the results of experiments. If we drop an object, it falls to the ground and science calls this 'the effect of gravity'. But with creation, science is willing to accept hypothesis and theory rather than accept that God created it.
Now, there's a few important points, and we'll come back to them again and again when we consider human nature and its effects on the people and situations we'll be looking at this year;
I don't want to dwell on the negative aspects, or put forward the usual evolution vs. creation arguments. (I spent 14 years working in conservation management and taught ecology and earth science, so looked at evolution very closely.)
My personal opinion is that God created the families of animals, as it says in Genesis ch1. These families have a genetic blueprint which constrains them to certain characteristics, but still allows the flexibility to develop into individual species. This flexibility allows them to survive in various climates and environments. Unfortunately evolutionists look at the 'flexibility' and try to remove God from the equation – which then doesn't work!
So let's look at the creation.
God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them. He did this in 6 stages. Before day one "the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."
On this he created the world and all living things. First he created light, then the heavens, dry land, plants, the sun, moon and stars, fish and animals and finally man.
It is a huge subject and I could go on for days and days, but I would like to look at a few details that may be of interest.
Since changing job, I now create software systems and the hardest part is to try to make the system able to cope with change. If a user enters incorrect data we don't want the system to crash. They might enter the date as 3rd September or as 3/09 or some other format. In the US they put the month first, then the date. The system has to be able to adapt.
God have given the same, but better, ability to his creation. Without this, 2 things would happen;
There are example in the natural world of such a situation. One example is the English Elm tree. It never (or at least very, very rarely) produced seed. It spread by sending out suckers which colonised the area around it. As such, if any problem arose it would not have any variations could withstand it. The problem did arise the form of Dutch Elm Disease and only the trees in areas not affected survive.
At the other end of the scale God created some species to be very adaptable. Rabbits were nearly wiped out by Myxomatosis, but as there were enough variations, some were found to be strong enough to resist it. Certain insects (and diseases) can now resist pesticides.
This really shows just how good God is to us. He has given us such a variety of things to enjoy. He could have given us just one type of food, one type of tree, ect. But instead of this he has given us such a wondrous variety of life that we can appreciate. He created it to show his power and glory and love for us in everything that he has given.
It is interesting to note that when God created the heavens, the earth and all life that he said "let there be..., he did not make it with his hands. This shows us his power even more.
God has been so good to us in that he has given us everything.