Let’s begin at the beginning—Genesis 1.
Use your own Bible or the following link (Answers below if you need them)
http://biblehub.com/niv/genesis/1.htm
1. Fill in the blanks (verse one).
“In the Beginning _________________ ________________________ the heaven and the earth.”
2. What was it like when he started (verse 2)?
________________________ and _____________________
Imagine yourself there on Day One. Water, water everywhere . . . but you can’t see a thing. Darkness covered “the deep.” Then over the sloshing of an endless ocean in the total black of interminable night, you hear a voice say—
3. (Verse 3) “Let there be ______________________”
Close your eyes and picture God speaking luminous beauty over that dark, shapeless chaos. The foggy mist begins to glow. The water catches the light, tossing it from wave to wave until every ripple sparkles. And God smiles.
4. He announces that the light is ____________________ (verse 4).
As he continues fashioning our world step by step, he pronounces each thing he makes “good.”
And . . .
5. What word begins each verse describing God’s work on the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days?
_____________ (Verses 6, 9, 14, 20, and 24)?
Even the and-exterminating translators of the NIV knew that these introductory conjunctions had to stay. They are a crucial element in a Creation poem. Each step is perfect, but each is part of a sequence—all in preparation for God’s ultimate objective.
6. What does God speak into existence on the sixth day (verses 24 and 25) ?
How do you picture that day unfolding? Did God speak an explosion of animal life into existence in one command? Or do you imagine, as I do, the animals called forth from the earth one by one. Join me in a peek at the world-in-process on sunrise of the sixth day. God rubs his hands together in glee, eager to get started, and his musical voice reverberates through the air. “Let there be lions,” he says, and great golden paws appear, clawing their way out of the ground. The first magnificent male is still shaking his mane free of the remaining clods of earth when the first sleek lioness nuzzles his nose in a greeting of animal love. God watches them bound off, exploring their new world like curious kittens, and says, “That’s good!”
Next he says, “Let there be platypuses,” and— Oh look! —there by the river, a row of four sharply-clawed webbed paws are scrabbling their way out of the mud. Almost immediately two rounded black bills emerge between those two set of paws. Bills like ducks, but these are definitely not birds. God chuckles with delight at the furry cuteness waddling into the river, so happy together. “Yes!” he shouts, as the pair begins to frolic and dart about in the water. “I call that idea good.”
And then!
The Creator spends the entire morning in creative abandon, filling the earth with a staggering array of glorious animal life. Then he leaves off merely speaking things into existence. The sequence of “ands” ends. The text doesn’t say “and he made mankind . . . ”
7. Verse 26 begins with the word, _______________.
Feel the excitement in that word. The creation of humanity was the climax and purpose of everything else. All that frenzy of creative activity? Merely gifts—good gifts—specially planned surprises for the object of God’s love. The Creator had you and me in mind from the very beginning.
When God seems remote in the clamor of a busy day, take a quiet moment to revel in the myriad delights around you. Look. Listen. Touch. Smell. Taste. Let your senses fully engage in that cool refreshing drink, the satiny smoothness of your cat’s back and his purring thanks for those loving strokes, the smell and taste of that fresh-baked cookie, the beauty and strength of that intrepid wildflower poking up through a crack in the pavement. “Every good and perfect gift is from above” (James 1:7). Be mindful. Savor the pleasure and hear the message—we are loved by a very creative and very good God. Praise him with a grateful heart.
__________
Answers:
1. God created
2. formless and empty
3. light
4. good
5. and
6. living creatures (the land animals)
7. Then