The Avatar

Today’s Reading: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. – Genesis 1:1

Remember the blockbuster film called The Avatar?

No, I am not talking about the disaster of a film The LastAirbender (I’m still mad at you M. Night!). I’m talking about the one with the tall and lanky blue people who flew around on winged dragon birds after plugging into them with their hair.

Yes, that movie.

One of the themes that struck me with that film was this notion that this god force was in nature. It was in the roots of the trees and the trees were all connected so that there was this vast network of god energy permeating throughout nature.  This was a cool device to talk about the importance of protecting our planet and how if we keep our home a happy one it will take care of us.

Of course that’s not what this verse says. It says that in the beginning God created…

That means that for as beautiful as that idea is it minimizes God. He created all things. He is the author of all creation. How can he be limited to a tree or a forest? He created all things! Does this mean that we shouldn’t respect nature and treat the earth with respect? Of course not (we’ll deal with that later). But this understanding has done something powerful for me. It is an amazing reminder of just how powerful God is. He exists before time and space, before nature, before the sun and the moon. He IS and therefore we had the possibility of being.

Nature isn’t God, God created nature.

The idea that God would come down into His creation so that we could be saved, so that we could choose to have a direct relationship to Him, was all the more powerful when I realized this truth. He created this for us and He chose to come into it after we messed it up so that He could be with us forever, just as He always planned.

Do you see God in nature? What is it that you are really seeing?