40 Days - Day 18

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light;" and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. And God said, "Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day" Gen. 1:1-8 NRSV.

Everyone knows that passage, backwards and forwards. We’ve been taught it since we were old enough to talk and walk, sometimes even earlier. Yet, most of the time we read this and don’t think twice about what we just flew through. I even admit to not thinking much about it when I read it.

I think I was at Crash when I first heard this analysis of Genesis 1. The writer of Genesis, along with God of course, chose their words carefully when they wrote this. “While a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” Now most people don’t even catch this mark in the writing. Again, I’m definitely not the one who originally stated this, but I will restate it because it will lead to a big point in a second.

When Genesis was written, the Hebrews were, if I’m not mistaken, under control of a Middle Eastern kingdom. I can’t remember who, but it will make sense of why I’m saying this at this point. In the Middle Eastern creation myth, water was viewed as the instigator of all chaos on Earth. In this view, the writer of Genesis used this to show that when God created the Earth and separated the waters to create the “dome,” or land, He had complete control over chaos.

So here is where I can tie all of this in. A lot of you may not know that I have had a real crazy past couple of months. From surgery that ended my football season to a lot of craziness and hoopla mumbo jumbo, I haven’t seen much outside of the craziness and chaos that has basically taken complete control of my life. I never meant it to, but when you deal with the same things over and over again every day, it tends to find a way to slip in and take control of your life. I know that I’m not the only one who has had to deal with this; so this is why I write.

This Winter Retreat is about prayer. When I heard that I thought, “Wow, that’s really simplistic.” Now that I think about it, it might just be the one thing I need. In a life full over craziness and chaos and water: God is the only one with the ability to take control of my chaos. There aren’t many things that we can have complete control of. You can’t control how friends may act or treat you. You can’t control unfortunate family situations. Heck, we can’t really control how thumb joints decided to bend and pop out of place and tear your Ulnar Collateral Ligament. The one thing we can control, however, is to let God take control of our chaos, whatever that might be. I’m still learning to do this as well.

So my prayer for all of us, as well as myself, is to let God take control of our chaos. While everything may not make sense to us, God is just waiting to separate our waters and let the domes of land to emerge.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas.

In Christ,
Zack “Zoosee” Flowers