The Full Tank Life by Ben Tankard

Author:Ben Tankard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion / Christian Life / Personal Growth, Religion / Christian Life / Inspirational
Publisher: FaithWords
Published: 2016-08-29T16:00:00+00:00

In the Beginning

Inspiration is often believed to be divine in origin, an immediate sense of revelation from God’s influence. The word itself comes from inspirare, from the Latin meaning “to breathe in,” or as we might say it today, “to inhale.” It’s no coincidence that the Holy Spirit is often described as a rushing wind, a breath of fresh air, a cool breeze of comfort. And we see the origin of inspiration on the first page of every Bible.

In fact, the book of Genesis starts with a moment I find shocking: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void” (1:1–2 KJV). While this verse may be familiar to you, I say, “Hold up! How can something that God created be without form and void?” Have you ever considered this? Why didn’t God just speak the entire world into existence—sky and land; water and fire; people, plants, and animals—by uttering a single word? He’s all-powerful, so He surely could have, right?

Or consider this. After listing the six days of creation, the Bible tells us that on the seventh day God rested. Does God really need to rest? I don’t think so—at least not in the way you and I need rest. But what if the Lord wanted to show us something by the very process he used in the creation of the world, something we needed to grasp for ourselves since we are created in His image? Something we need to know in order to create the lives He designed us for? Could He be modeling a process we’re intended to follow? One similar to the way parents show their children how to act?

I’m convinced this is definitely one of the messages of the creation as described in Genesis. Notice what happens on Day 2: “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day” (Gen. 1:3–5 NKJV).

Each day of creation then follows the same pattern. God creates something and then He molds it, shapes it, and refines it before He names it. Genesis 1 describes not only the process God demonstrates, but the natural progression from the creation stage into the formation stage to the naming stage followed by a period of rest.

While it’s easy to distinguish six days of creation from the seventh day of rest and conclude we’re supposed to follow suit and set aside a day for Sabbath, within each of the creation days there’s also an important lesson for us about the creative process and the power of the imagination. The initial creative impulse is the idea stage, the moment when you get the concept, song, poem, business idea, or glimpse of that new invention. The formation stage is when you act and put in motion the necessary steps to bring your creative ideas to life.

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