I grew up in a fishing family where we owned a canoe. I always looked forward to going fishing with my Dad. Our family spent most of the summer outdoors. We made the most of the beautiful summer weather and savored all God’s creation has to offer. There is something majestic about drifting down a river, casting a line, and just taking in the movement of the water, the fish rising to the surface and animals playing on the riverbanks. I think it’s my experience in nature and my enjoyment of it that causes a spirit of awe to rise up within me whenever I read the creation account found in Genesis 1. The first verse found in the Scripture reads: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1:1). This is a foundational fact of the Bible. God brought into existence all that we know of the physical universe. God spoke and out of nothing God brought into existence the cosmos and our world and filled it with birds, vegetation, fish, animals, and people. It is clear from the creation account that God delights in His creation.
What is interesting is that when Moses wrote the opening Chapters of Genesis his overarching intent was merely to inform us of God’s creative work but to prepare God’s people for the mission we have been created to fulfill in partnership Him. The first chapter of Genesis is more than the introduction to the first book in the Bible. It is the opening chapter of God’s redemptive plan for His creation that consists of four parts: Creation (the way things were); Fall (the way things are; Redemption (the way things could be); and Restoration (the way things will be). When we look at the whole gospel, we not only discover the Fall and Redemption but God’s original good creation and His future restoration of it. If we see the gospel as only Fall and Redemption, then we can quickly fall into the trap of seeing our salvation as a bus ticket to paradise and believe that what we do while waiting for the bus doesn’t matter all that much. God calls and empowers us to live on mission, and that mission is to know Him and make Him known by identifying as His people in His world for His glory. In short, God has called us to participate in His restorative mission.
In the first chapter of Genesis, we read God’s purpose for creating us. God declared, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness (see: Gen 1:26-27). Through God’s creating of humanity we discover that God is relational, and this quality has been imprinted on each and every one of us. We have been made to be in a relationship with God (to know Him) and with the rest of creation (to make Him known). We have been made in God’s image and as such made to be relational.
We also discover in Genesis 1 our mission. We read: “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (see: Gen 1:28-30). Genesis 1:28-30 is commonly called the “cultural mandate.” Here God calls us to partner with Him in His work. The cultural mandate calls us to fill the world with God’s images and “subdue it.” We are to develop healthy social environments through building families, churches, schools, cities and the like. We also are to develop healthy natural environments through planting crops, building bridges, composing music, while caring for the natural world. We are called to create cultures and care for creation for God’s glory.
God presents Adam and Eve with a job description of sorts for them and their descendants (us), “God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.’” The unfortunate reality is because of sin introduced during the Fall, people have abused their stewardship of God’s creation. Today believers stand in the same place Adam and Eve did before the Fall knowing God’s purpose for creating us and our mission, but they are also filled with the Holy Spirit and have the resources of heaven at their disposal to fulfill this calling. Believers are now called and empowered to properly care for God’s creation.
I guess when I think back on the times I went out fishing with my Dad I recognize that something inside of me identified with God’s purpose for creating me as His image bearer. I have grown to desire to echo the words of the elders found in the book of Revelation: “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you create all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Rev 4:11). Floating down the river fishing nature gave witness to God who created me to know Him and the beauty of His creation cried out for me to care for her for His glory.
It is a privilege to do life with each of you. As image bearers of the living God let us rejoice in knowing Him and encourage one another to make Him known by developing healthy social and natural environments.