Creation

When I was young, I always had the same question as every other child. “Where do I come from?” Since, in China, none of my friends were brought up in Christian families, neither did I; we were told that we were send by a mysterious person. Someday, when our parents wished for a child, the mysterious person would know it immediately, and bring one to them. “So one day, when I open the door, I saw a basket; when I looked into it, you are lying there.” That was how my mom told me where I came from. At such a young age, plus, I was affected by the fairy tales; I did firmly believe that there must be one person who has the power to bring baby to his/her parents. When I looked back, I think that “person” is God. But we don’t have religion beliefs in China, we generally call “that guy” “the mysterious person”.
When I grew up, I studied biology, from the book, I learnt the process of “producing a baby”. But still, I thought the Darwin’s evolution was the foundation of creation.
For a child who grew up in Christian families, it is so natural for them to believe that they are created by God. When I came to a US church the first time, I attended a bible study class for beginners, we read through the first several chapters of Genesis. Honestly, we thought those were nonsense. I read bible before when I was in China. But in China, people treated Bible as a legend. Like Greek legend, people read them for fun rather than taking it seriously. How can a guy create the universe in only 7 days, I doubt it, or rather, I wouldn’t believe this at any time.
But God is amazing, he send people to me and converted me gradually into a Christian. When I read the creation this time, I was shocked by how proud and how empty I was at the time when I first read Genesis.
Why we say that God created us instead of constructed us? Doesn’t God make us in the same way as the workers put different body part of a Barbie doll into a whole, or as those construction workers build the skyscraper floor by floor? I remembered that I had this question before. I am so excited when I found the answer in this chapter.
As the British author G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “the whole difference between construction and creation is…that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created before it exists.” When we are building a skyscraper, we are not sure how it will turn out to be. We wait, until one day, we saw that it was finished. Then we judged the building by its function, by its outlooking, by the profit we get from building it. People only love the skyscraper if it is well built and getting producer money. It is so different from how God created us. He knows that we have sin since we were born. But he still gives us a chance to live in the world. God loves his every single child despite of their look, personality, disabilities and family backgrounds. A child is created by LOVE, since his/her mom gets pregnant, the whole family prepared to welcome the new life, no one will hate the coming new life just because they are unsure what’s their baby will look like or what can he/she do in the future.
And the most wonderful thing is, God will love us, but only in the process of creation but also through fall and redemption.