URC Daily Devotion 21st February

These chapters include important passages about God as creator that reflect both ancient cosmology and understandings of human growth in the womb. They indicate something of the development of these theological concepts; and how this writer challenges simplistic ideas. It was believed that the earth was flat and that it rested on pillars set firmly at the base of the watery ‘deep’ where chaos monsters dwelt. The bottoms of mountains acted as foundations that provided stability and in the Psalms (46:2-3; 75:3; 93:1) this is all part of God’s creative work that can resist hostile forces. Job argues that God also has the power to ‘undo’ creation as an expression of divine anger, which for all its negativity is a salutary reminder that we should never take the continuing existence of anything, even the cosmos, for granted. Even the promises of God in Genesis that there will never be another ‘Flood’ recognise that the earth might be finite (Gen.8:22).

The description of God’s involvement in the development of a human baby resonates with ideas about the creation of humanity found elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible (formed from dust – Gen.2:7; moulded like clay – Isa.45:9; and knit together – Ps.139:13) but this is much more detailed, almost ‘scientific’, with its reference to skin, flesh, bones and sinews. It reveals a God intimately involved in bringing to birth an individual new life with great care, as an act of love; and then preserving that person in being. We are indeed wonderfully made, each one of us a unique child of God, and we can be confident that God, as our mother, will never forget us (Isa.49:15). I may not understand the ways of God; but I will trust in God’s unfailing love.