Do Not Adjust Your Monitor, We Are In Control

If all goes smoothly, I have magically linked my blog into my Facebook notes. Did I mention I have a blog? Tis true, and now I can do double duty with it. There's a couple posts on it before this, so if you want to check it out, there's probably a link somewhere attached to the note, but I'll pop a URL right down here for your convenience:
http://daytodaycrisisoffaith.blogspot.com/

There's not a lot of interest, just ramblings of me that some may have already seen, in more or less the default appearance. If you're into the whole RSS scene, you'll be able to grab that there. If you don't know what an RSS is, don't worry about it. If you are reading this looking for another of my quiz notes, don't sweat it. Those will most likely return in the coming school year. They'll be regular notes since I don't really want them to leak into my blog. Because! I think I finally have a direction for my blogging. I have a couple projects which I would like to keep track of via this. Wrapped in secrecy, I'm only going to fully reveal it/them when I get far enough that I trust myself to follow through, but the part I am beginning on tonight is something I've wanted to do with the blog for a while. I'm a bit of a pack rat when in comes to church bulletins, and in looking through my collection, I've got the feeling that I have a few cents worth to share on a lot of them. So what I'll be doing periodically (not guaranteeing regularity though) is talk about the topics and incorporate my own thoughts. I think I may even put together my own thoughts about random Bible passages without old sermon inspiration. If this idea doesn't interest you, tough cookies. You've been warned, and if you don't want to read, by no means do so. But if you do, I welcome it and your (civil) comments.

Segue out of intro to my first of hopefully several if not many Bible Blurbs. (If you have a better name, I'm open to it. I don't want to call them sermons or lessons, so that's the best I could do.) The topic today is Genesis 1, please turn with me to it now. Generally speaking, I'm not going to copy down more than a verse or two. I encourage use of your own copy of the Bible. If you do not have one, I suggest A) getting one, B) using biblegateway.com, an excellent website (with a sorta clunky search engine) and/or C) talking to me. If you don't have the means, I will find a way to get a copy of the Bible into your hands if you have a need. But yes, Genesis 1.

I was looking through it the other day myself, and these are my thoughts. A lot of people know the first chunk or so, and even more know the gist. God makes things, calls 'em good, makes some more things and yay, we've got creation. It's an easy chapter to skim. After all, we know this part already, right? Well, I don't think so. Not only is all scripture useful for all manner of things (2nd Timothy 3:16), but think about it for a second. The Bible is God's word, and when God speaks, we ought to listen. Not listen to just the rules or the happy parts or the proverbs, listen to every single word of it. So that's what I did, and I hit something kinda neat.

You may be familiar with it: after every day, God sees that it (being the day's creation) was good. One the one hand, of course it's good. God just made everything, even still got that new creation smell, of course it's good. But think on "good" for a moment. These days, the word is pretty bland. We mean it the same way we mean "decent", "ok" and a lot of times "good enough". Is that what brand new creation was like? Good enough? Not likely. When God sees that it is good, He doesn't mean fine or ok. This is the God so holy that a single sin cannot enter His presence, the God so perfect that our earthly bodies would not survive the sight of Him. When God says it's good, you'd do well to believe it was good. Perfect, awesome, faultless, that kind of good. Not "I did a pretty good job on this paper, I should get a passing grade" good, not "we'll call it good" good, this is God good.

Doesn't stop there though. We'll go on to see what happens to this beautifully good creation, but I'm not going that far tonight. I will highlight that it's a grand set-up, planned by the Writer Himself. The two things I personally take out of these thoughts are firstly that, for God's part, the world would be pretty awesome if there wasn't all that sin out there mucking things up. The other is, if we can look at the stars and flowers, rainbows and sunsets and still see the beauty and wonder, how much better were things when He made them? It's a cool thought to imagine a fraction of the glory we'll have to look forward to in Heaven, isn't it? I certainly think so.

That conludes the re-inaugural post of this, my blog. Follow along with me if you dare. I'm going more public because I want to hear from all y'alls, so don't let me down. For now, this is JP over and out.