There are eight Bibles in my office. Eight covers. Eight styles. Eight translations. Today I opened every single one up to the first page of Genesis. The first line read the same in each one. “In the beginning God…” (Genesis 1:1) In six of them, I had underlined the words. In two of them, I had made notes. In one of them, I had written these words, “God is the beginning of every story. In Him, we find our start, our place, our home.”
Only vaguely do I remember inscribing those words in my margin. It is my newest Bible, purchased at my birthday for this year’s spiritual trek through its sacred pages. My fifth annual journey through Genesis. I am embarrassed it took me so long to see it. I stand in humble amazement at the magnificent meaning of those words. In the beginning–of me, of you, of everything–is God.
It is a story that never ceases to astound me. Creation. The dark bleakness of the empty universe stirring God to an act of redemption bringing light, introducing color, creating life. The concepts of planets and stars, sun and moon all set in their own part of space boggle my mind. The multitude of fish in the sea, birds of the air, and animals on land are beyond human imagination, even before we consider all their individual types. The plants and trees, flowers, and shrubs far exceed what human minds can enumerate. We think it magnificent. We dub it miraculous. We often fail to realize it was an extravagance Heaven afforded because the most fantastic part of Creation was still to come. (Genesis 1)
God created man. And woman. By hand. Words alone were enough to establish day and night. Simple instructions divided the oceans with land. One command cemented the sun and moon in the sky. The words of His mouth called out fish and birds, animals and plants. Every part of land and sky and sea came about because God spoke and it was so. Every part except humanity.
Words would miserably fail to describe what God was about to do. He was done speaking things into existence. What He now had to create was far too important. Gently, carefully, powerful hands reached down to scoop dust from His newly created earth. Using Himself as a pattern, those hands shaped and formed that dust into the body, head, hands, and feet that would become known as humanity. When his newly formed creation hung from His hand, limp and lifeless, its lungs starving for oxygen, God lowered His head and breathed into man the breath of life. (Genesis 2:7)
In great omniscience, God created woman. Not from dust. He’d done that already. No, He chose an even smaller medium with which to work. One rib. One delicate, brittle, small rib. Bending to His task, He skillfully crafted more than 200 bones and over 70 organs. All from one bone! I shouldn’t be surprised. I shouldn’t feel astonished. I’ve heard the account dozens of times. Yet still, I sit in awestruck wonder that God, who had no need to dirty His hands molding and shaping teeth and tongue, skin and hair, would readily do that very thing, so great was His love for humanity. (Genesis 2:21-23)
God didn’t stop creating at the end of Genesis 2. He hasn’t rested since. Before anyone knew you were sequestered beneath your mother’s heart, God planned for you to be. He carefully created that place for you to live and grow and develop. As you grew and your presence became known, God was there, too, carefully shaping, meticulously crafting, ingeniously developing your internal organs–brain, spinal cord, and heart. By the time human science was willing to refer to you as a fetus, holy science was already busily forming your nose, carving out your lips, and shaping your ears. When the sound of your heartbeat finally echoed through the machines in the doctor’s office, God had been jubilantly rejoicing over its musical sound for weeks. As family and friends anxiously waited to meet you, see your smile, decide whose eyes you got, God was indulgently chuckling in joy as He formed your tiny hands and feet with painstaking precision. And as all the careful forming and growing and shaping was fulfilled, God prepared you for your miraculous journey into the world. However it was to be, God knew. He was there. He has been there from your beginning.
Unfortunately, as you have grown and matured, your choices have not always reflected His presence. You were distracted by the things of the world, the baubles, the pleasures, the fun. You walked away from God, His will, His work. You frolicked through life squandering your time, your talents, your resources. Eventually, the talents and resources played out. The things the world saw in you dimmed. They lost interest in your company. Alone, in despair, you remembered God and wondered what happened to Him. Had He changed at all since you left? Was He still love and mercy and grace? Was He still interested in having you work for Him? What would He say if you just came back home?
Your questions are answered by Jesus in His parable of the prodigal son. Like you, the boy got distracted by the apparent excitement the world offered. Dazzled at the thought of money and pleasure, he asked for his inheritance early. Unwilling to hold his son against his will, the father complied. A few days later, the son set out to seek the promised worldly pleasures in a faraway town.
Upon arrival, the son quickly became popular. He spent like the money was endless, lived as if he’d never die. Whiskey. Women. Pleasure. Fun. Until the money ran out. His friends deserted him. His fun dried up. He found himself destitute on the streets of a city that wasn’t home. Desperate for work, food, warmth, and love.
Eventually, he found work as a swine sitter. Slop hauler. Muck wader. There were no benefits, no amenities. No one cared for him. No one fed him. His meals came from the same place the pigs ate. Depressed, discouraged, disheartened, he realized his father’s servants had better lives than he did. With nothing to lose, he decided to haul his bedraggled self back home, offer an apology, and apply for a job as his father’s servant.
The prodigal son must have had a twitter of trepidation as he walked that road toward home. He had no idea what would happen when he arrived. Surely he had questions much like yours. Would his apology be enough? Was there a job opening? Was his father still kind and gracious and loving? What would he say, how would he feel, when he realized his wandering, squandering son had come back home?
The wait wasn’t as long as he thought it would be. When he was still so far from home the human eye could only distinguish a small dot moving down the road, his father saw him. Always watchful, always hoping for the return of his son, the father stepped to the edge of the porch, leaned over the railing, and squinted his eyes to see. He didn’t need to see, though. His father’s heart knew. That was his son! His boy was coming home!
Nothing could have kept that father waiting at the house. No. He jumped off the porch and dashed down the walk. By the time he reached the road, he was at an all-out sprint. As he reached his son, he grabbed that soiled, smelly, starving kid up in his arms and kissed his filthy cheek. None of the mess mattered. None of the past mattered. His son was home! Let the celebration begin! (Luke 15:11-24)
We all see ourselves in this parable. We are all prodigals, ragamuffins, runaways who left the God of our beginning attempting to find something better in the world. We wasted entire swaths of our lives on things we thought would fill the void in our souls. It was a fool’s errand. Nothing satisfies. Nothing meets our needs. Nothing, no one but Jesus. (Romans 3:23; Psalm 107:9)
Finding ourselves in untenable situations, we have all had to drag our dirty, disheveled selves back to Heaven’s doorstep. Once there, we each discovered the exact same thing. No matter how you come, He will welcome you. Prodigal. Poor. Perplexed. Promiscuous. The mess doesn’t matter. The past doesn’t matter. God doesn’t care what you look like when you arrive. There is no dress code, no special handshake, no secret password. He just wants you to come back home! (I John 1:9; Revelation 22:17; Isaiah 55:1)
There is a place for you there. You belong. You are part of God’s family. God’s child. Lovingly, meticulously created in His image. Your soul will find the rest for which it longs. His promise never to leave you will be proven true. The God who was present in your beginning will fill your earthly days and, finally, transport you to eternal glory. He will be your Alpha through to Omega. Your beginning. Your middle. Your end. That is what will happen if you just came back home. Will you come? (Revelation 1:8; Matthew 11:28-30; Titus 2:11; I Timothy 2:4; Luke 15:7, 10; Zephaniah 3:17)