By Toni Ford
I love beginning a New Year by reading the Book of Genesis, the very first book in the Bible. The Hebrew meaning for Genesis is “Bereshit,” which means “in the beginning of.” This year, the Lord opened my eyes to something I had never seen before in the first five verses of chapter one in Genesis. I love how the Bible never gets old, dull or out of style. It is always fresh and there are always new things to learn if we just open our hearts and minds to the Lord, allowing Him to teach us a new word.
Genesis 1:1-5 says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” And evening passed and morning came, marking the first day.”
While reading those verses, two specific truths were revealed to me.
God is light. From the very beginning, we are told two things – God existed before anyone or anything and that He alone is the creator of this earth. He goes on to describe the condition of the earth. Scripture does not reveal why God chose to start His creative work with a chaotic mass that was dark, formless and empty, but we do get a glimpse of what was hovering over that dark mass – the Holy Spirit, who would bring order out of the chaos and beauty and fullness out of the emptiness. The great news is that the Holy Spirit not only brought this order, beauty, and fullness to the earth but also does this for us personally if we will surrender our lives to Him.
While reading, I realized that God could have created anything He wanted to on the first day but the thing He chose to create first was light. Why? Think of all the benefits to light. Light diminishes our fear of the unknown, the darkness. Light reveals, light guides our paths, light helps us see things as they really are, light brings out the truth, and light is life! God Himself is our light and life! I believe it is because He knew how much we would need light, His light in a dark world. John 1:4 says, “In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.” God knew from the very beginning of time how much we would need both the physical light in this dark world but also the spiritual light, God Himself!
God spoke and God saw. Ten times within the first chapter of Genesis, we read, “Then God said…” Each day, God would speak out loud the very thing He was creating or calling forth. I was reminded of the importance of praying and reading Scripture out loud. Whispering, mumbling or thinking is not where the true power lies; the power comes from speaking it out loud which also causes an increase in our faith. When God spoke it, then Scripture tells us He saw it. God said it (spoke it out loud) and then He saw it (the revelation came). Psalm 33:9 says, “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.
Dear Lord, thank you for being the light of our lives, both physically and spiritually. Please give us the strength and courage to speak your truths our loud, and then as a result, open our eyes to see even greater revelations of You!