The Secular Franciscan Home Page: http://secularfranciscans.org

The Word of God

The written story of creation is as mysterious as the mists that shrouded creation's real beginning.

    Long before it was written down, the Israelites had moved through the experiences of Genesis and Exodus and there, God had manifested His salvific intervention in their lives.

    In Chapter I, Genesis, the seven days narrated by the author under God's inspiration was an unknown span of time. They encompassed God's time. With god there is no time limit, no beginning, and no end. A thousand years is as a day and a day is as a thousand years … or a million … or a zillion.

    Whether creation happened in 7 days or over a period of eons of time is not important because time is not important to God. The first chapter was written in the 6th century before Christ.

    The people were turning to idols to worship. They would make an idol or a statue, and claim it was the creator of the universe. But how could something made by man be his creator?

    To set them straight, the author wrote down the creation story. God inspired the author, the details were not important, or the sequence of days or events; but, the irrefutable fact is, God is the Creator of all things.

    Chapters II and III of Genesis were written under God's inspiration, also by a different author at a different time than Chapter I. They were written in the 9th century before Christ. They too, obviously, were written long after the experiences of Genesis and Exodus.

    During these experiences there was much evil in the world, people suffered hardships, and pain. Why is there evil and suffering? The answer is evil began in the Garden of Eden, and God reprehended the people. Suffering began then of their free will, when they rejected God. The first man and woman set themselves up to act on their own, living their own way. They felt they didn't have to do it God's way, like so many people today.

    And so, evil entered in. The result, the author pointed out, was that man had to labor by the sweat of his brow and woman was subject to pangs of childbirth. To this day, mankind is slow to understand the truth of suffering, deprivation, hunger and death.

    We cannot do it our own way. We must have God in our lives. We must follow where He has been leading and guiding us. He is beseeching us, with his boundless love that we follow His way on our pilgrimage through life. Sometimes it is across dark and deserted places, but always with hope in His eternal love. Here, he waits to receive us, where we will live with him in reality, for all eternity. We will be his people and He will be our God.