How is it that God made light on the first day but on the fourth day created the sun, moon and stars?  How is it that God created plants on the third day before the sun existed?

Could it be that God does not understand the way things work?  From a scientific perspective, the way creation is recorded in the first chapter of Genesis makes no sense at all.  Then why is it recorded this way?

Several years ago I found myself in a place of great financial need.  I needed close to $2,000 per month to make ends meet and I had no idea where it would come from.  My first response was to worry!  But then, after taking time to pray I said to God, “All my life I have had a steady income from work.  I now see that you have given me an opportunity to experience you as my provider, not an employer or even a person.  I will trust you and I thank you in advance for your love and care.  Amen.”

I wish I could say that day was the end of my worrying but it was not.  That year was a year of struggles and ups and downs.  I began looking for God’s provision in a dumpster and saw some of it there.  It saw a time when someone I trusted cheated me out of over $2,000!  I had to forgive that man and to this day this man, a professing Christian, has not honored his debt.  But at the end of that year when I added up all that had come in it was even more than I had needed each month.  To be sure I did not sit in my chair and wait for it to fall like manna from the sky.  I worked and searched and prayed and struggled.

Now this brings me back to Genesis 1.  It seems to be that in recording the order of creation the way it is we are meant to understand that it is not the sun, or even light or the earth itself that is our source of  sustinence but the God OF creation.

This should give us great hope in a time when the earth as our source of life is being threatened by our own sinfulness!