Understanding God: A Gentle Father Who Respects Human Choices
God said, “It’s not good for the Man to be alone; I’ll make him a helper, a companion.” So God formed from the dirt of the ground all the animals of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the Man to see what he would name them. Whatever the Man called each living creature, that was its name. The Man named the cattle, named the birds of the air, named the wild animals; but he didn’t find a suitable companion. God put the Man into a deep sleep. As he slept he removed one of his ribs and replaced it with flesh. God then used the rib that he had taken from the Man to make Woman and presented her to the Man. The Man said, “Finally! Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh!” – Genesis 2:18-23 (The Message)
In continuation of our meditation on the nature of God, another attribute of His we shall meditate on today is his gentle nature. He respects human’s choices and wishes. Having created humans as a free moral agent, He usually does not force anything on anyone, except in extraordinary circumstances.
The first indication of this attribute of God we are availed in the Bible is the scenario of seeking a partner for Adam. Having publicly expressed His concern about Adam being alone as well as His plan to find him a suitable helper, God brought all manners of creature to Adam to see if he would find anyone suitable among them. We can only imagine how many hundreds of thousands or even millions these creatures were. Their number thus tells us the number of times God tried to matchmake Adam with a potential partner.
However, Adam refused them all in their numbers. Therefore, the number of creatures that God brought to him that Adam named differently represented the number of times he said ‘no’ to God. Meanwhile, God did not take offense at this or reprimand Adam for being too choosy. Afterall, He was God. On the contrary, He respected Adam’s wishes. And guess what, He tried again!
God tried again and again!
He kept bringing more and more creatures to Adam to see if he would find a worthy mate among them. But Adam did not see the need to do eye service for God by meeting Him halfway and accepting one of the creatures brought to him as partner. They must have been so close as to enjoy that kind of liberty.
Finally, after He had exhausted his picks and there was no other creature to present to Adam, God decided to try another method to solve the problem of finding a partner for the man. This latest method seemed to work because immediately Adam saw the creature that was formed from his rib he proclaimed her the one:
The Man said,
“Finally! Bone of my bone,
flesh of my flesh!
Name her Woman
for she was made from Man.” (Genesis 2:23)
The scenario leading to this proclamation throws an insight into the temperate nature of God. He did not impose on Adam or use His authority to subdue or manipulate him into capitulation. He did not castigate Adam for wasting His time either. Rather, He kept bringing more and more creatures to Adam and He did not stop trying until Adam finally found and labelled his own partner.
He is a considerate God.
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. – Habakkuk 2:14
Understanding God: He is A Nurturer The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground…
Understanding God: He is A Nurturer
The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden… Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. – Genesis 2:8-10
In continuation of our exploration of the nature and character of God, our meditation today shall be on His attributes as a Gardener or Nurturer. In other words, we will be exploring His nurturing attributes.
By nature, God is a nurturer. He did not have to do anything on earth when His work was done. But after He created it, He did not stop cultivating and tending it. That was why He formed the different earthly creatures He made – the birds, sea creatures, plants, animals and humans, all inhabitants of the earth. He did not stop there, He also decided to cultivate a garden, a special place for Himself on earth where He could lounge whenever He came by (Genesis 3:8).
It’s the thinking behind such an endeavor that we are considering today as we appreciate the nature of God. It takes someone who is deeply connected to nature to want to plant a garden. Just like most vocations, it requires its own unique disposition of the heart to venture into it. One must love nature to want to plant a garden. So this garden God planted eastward in Eden was an indication of His love for nature. He did not just make all things; He also appreciates the beauty in all things.
There is also an element of meticulousness in planting a garden. One does not just dig in random plants in a garden. Careful thoughts usually go into choosing the plants and flowers that would be planted there. So the idea of planting a garden also indicates God observing this special care in choosing what plants should be cultivated in the garden He was planting out of all the species He had created.
Having a garden also requires certain disciplines to keep the plants fresh and alive. We also see this in God. He did not just start a garden and then left it when the novelty of seeing it was over, No. He also instituted two mechanisms to keep the garden going. Firstly, He channeled a great river from Eden to water the garden thus keeping it forever nurtured. Secondly, He also created man (Adam) and placed him in the garden to tend it.
Therefore, while the point of our meditation today is not on gardening per se, it is more on the inner workings of the heart of true gardeners. They are lovers of nature, they are nurturers, they are preservers, they appreciate beauty, they value life, and they do all these with passion and appreciation of the environment. These are offshoots from God, the Ultimate One.
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. – Habakkuk 2:14
God is Resourceful Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Thus God made the…
God is Resourceful: Discovering God’s Resourcefulness in Creation
Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. – Genesis 1:6-7
Another attribute of God which we will meditate on today is industry. He is a very resourceful God. We had earlier dwelt on how He used the power of imagination to see what the universe could become, even when it was all formless, void and dark; and did not inspire confidence as to what it could be. God nevertheless saw the huge potential buried in that formless, void and dark mass that made Him begin to start bringing them out through the process of creation.
However, this would not have happened if God was all vision and elocution alone with no action. The Oxford Dictionary defines resourcefulness as “the ability to find quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties.” Now difficulties do not get bigger than a vast universe whose observable diameter is estimated to be about 93 billion light-years. To put that in human context, a light-year is equivalent to 9 trillion kilometers or 6 trillion miles in our earthling reckoning. To be confronted with such magnitude of formlessness, voidness and darkness is as daunting as any difficulty can be.
Now you can appreciate the enormity of what God had to grapple with when He was about to start the work of creation. But beyond the eerie stretch of dark mass that greeted His eyes, He also saw the beauty that is the universe, with mind-blowing galaxies and stupendous splendor, as we know it today. This was made possible through imagination.
Then He decreed what He saw with His inner eyes into being. He did not stop there. As He was mouthing them, He was also backing His words with action by creating, making, forming, extracting, dividing, separating, labelling, evaluating, and much more as we can see in Genesis 1.
The story of creation reveals how resourceful God is. He does not just use His imagination to see what could be, or His mouth to decree what should be, He also uses His hands to work those into existence. He is a working God. He is industrious and does not rest on His oars, reveling on yesterday’s glory. He keeps working and makes everything new (Revelation 21:5; Isaiah 43:18-19).
The good news is that He has created us, humans just like Him, with His same mindset, drive, abilities, and temperament. The question is, what are you doing with yours?
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. – Habakkuk 2:14
Understanding God: Self-Appraisal And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. – Genesis 1:4 As we continue to explore the personality…
Understanding God: Self-Appraisal
And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. – Genesis 1:4
As we continue to explore the personality of God, one of His unique attributes that we are introduced to early in the Bible is self-appraisal. He is a God who appraises Himself and His works. This theme runs through the history of creation as documented in Genesis chapter 1. We see excerpts such as “And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good…” (vs. 10); “And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good…” (vs. 12); “So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good…” (vs. 21).
Now, God was not reporting to anybody, and He did not need to impress anyone in His creation. But because He has such high standards, He took time to evaluate every single one of His works and did not just wave them on. This shows His meticulous nature. He is attentive to detail and does not leave anything to chance. Rather He checks that everything is as He envisioned it to be.
This practice did not just ensure that God came up with a masterpiece in His output, it also helped Him to see the potential for more in some of the things He had created. That was why He could create light out of darkness (2-3); separated day and night from the light (vs. 5-6); created a firmament (Heaven) to separate the waters above and below (vs. 7-8); created the Earth by gathering the waters below the firmament to one side so that hard surface might emerge (vs. 9-10); made sea creatures from the water body below (vs. 21); and brought forth grass, herb, and fruit trees from the new hard surface He created (vs. 11-13). And this went on and on until He formed humans from the same ground.
This tells us that God is inventive and imaginative. He would not have been able to create anything if He wasn’t. He does not rest on His soars and does not bask in yesterday’s glory. He is a forward-thinking God who is always looking out for an opportunity to do more, make more and get more as the evolution of His creation aptly demonstrated to us.
The good news is that He created you just like Him, with the same mindset, capacities and power to think, function and operate like Him. The question is how are you making use of these endowments?
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. – Habakkuk 2:14
Understanding God: He is Inventive God said, “It’s not good for the Man to be alone; I’ll make him a helper, a companion.” So God formed from the dirt of…
Understanding God: He is Inventive
God said, “It’s not good for the Man to be alone; I’ll make him a helper, a companion.” So God formed from the dirt of the ground all the animals of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the Man to see what he would name them. Whatever the Man called each living creature, that was its name. The Man named the cattle, named the birds of the air, named the wild animals; but he didn’t find a suitable companion. God put the Man into a deep sleep. As he slept he removed one of his ribs and replaced it with flesh. God then used the rib that he had taken from the Man to make Woman and presented her to the Man. The Man said, “Finally! Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh!” – Genesis 2:18-23 (The Message)
In continuation of our meditation on the nature of God, today we will be focusing on His inventive attributes. He is the God of inventions and innovations.
For the benefit of those who may be alarmed at the fact we are using seemingly human attributes to describe God, here is an explanation. All the attributes we have read so far since we started this series and all we will also read in subsequent digest are originally God’s. Not human’s (2 Corinthians 3:5). But because He had created humans just like Him, that is how humans have come by those attributes as well.
Humans through their creative and other genius attributes are only exhibiting the divine nature embedded in their DNA from birth as offspring of God. Therefore, by spotlighting those unique aspects of God that appear to be in the domains of humans, we are only helping the readers to see what they can be if they channel the God in them to work. We hope this offers a context to those concerned.
Back to our focus for today. The passage above helps us to see the inventive nature of God. It so happened that after deploying different methods to make His creatures, God needed to provide a partner for His ultimate creature, man. However, the man for whom the partner was meant seemed not to be impressed by any of the creatures God brought to him to see if he would find one suitable for himself among them.
This led God to try again and channel His creative nous to come up with yet another creature using an entirely different method from the ones He used in the past to create the other creatures. This time, God had to undertake a medical procedure to achieve this. He carried out an anesthesia on Adam by inducing him to sleep and then performed a surgery on Adam, the first of its kind in recorded history, by removing a rib from the side of Adam and replacing the space created with flesh.
In case this does not sink in, let’s go over it again. In order to create the woman, God did three notable things. Firstly, He performed an anesthesia on Adam; secondly, He completed a surgical procedure by cutting open his flesh to remove a rib; and finally, God used the rib He removed to produce a new human creature. This is called reproductive cloning. So God also performed the first cloning known to man.
And guess what? The creature He produced through this whole procedure turned out to be His finest. Woman was God’s last throw of the dice at creation, and she remains the finest of them all. Moreso, she came into being because of the inventive nature of God in trying other means and exploring other solutions when the previous attempts did not work or produce the desired result.
The good news is that we are all created in His likeness. The main question is how inventive are you, and how are you putting your divine DNA to use?
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. – Habakkuk 2:14
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