God of the Creatures

In the beginning, everything was formless and void. And then, God spoke. He created the night and the day, the moon and the sun, the light and the dark. He created the mountains and the valleys, the land and the sea, the skies above. Then, He filled everything with creatures - things that swim in the waters, things that fly in the skies, things that move along the land. 

All of it. 

All of them.

So often, when we talk about an artist or a creator, we talk about the things that they create as an "it." Something static. Something that now just exists. Perhaps they are fond of it or think of it with a certain sense of pride, but there's no continuing relationship between the potter and the clay. The pot simply is now. It simply sits wherever it sits, and it is a "thing." 

Not so with God and His creatures. 

We know, of course, that He shares a special relationship with us as human beings created in His image. We know that He sent His Son to die for us and to walk out of that grave for us. We know that He loves us with a special fondness that knows every hair on our heads and knit us together in our mother's womb. We know that God is more than our Creator; He is our God. Our ongoing Lord. In constant relationship with us. 

Did you know that He is with the so-called creatures, too? 

He knows every inch of the giraffe's neck. Every scale on the fish. Every quill on the porcupine. Every hair on the orangutan. He knows every slither of the snake's tongue, every waddle of the penguin's feet, every quack of the duck's bill. 

But He doesn't just know these things in some kind of objective sense; He knows them because He is still in conversation with His creatures. Every day. 

When Job sits in his pile of dust and ashes and wonders what God is up to, when he speaks to his friends, when he calls out God and God answers, they have this exchange in which God brings up the creation of the animals, the creatures, as evidence of His mightiness, His wisdom, His goodness. Can Job know any of these things? Can Job know that the ostrich has wings to flap them joyfully before the Lord? 

Buried quietly in God's eloquence about the creation of the creatures is a small little verse that indicates for us that He didn't just create them; He still loves them, the way He loves us. He's still in relationship with them, the way He is with us. 

It's in Job 41. God says, when speaking of Leviathan, "Do you imagine it will beg you endlessly for mercy or lower its voice to a whisper when speaking to you? Will it strike a deal with you and enter into your service as a lifelong slave? Will you play with it?" The implication is that these are things God can do - does do - with Leviathan. 

He has a relationship with it. 

I love this. I love this so much. We talk about God frequently as a master artist, and it can lead us to believe that this whole creation is in some ways nothing more than a museum - a holding place for masterpieces. A storeroom for things God created and then set aside to look at forever, to just let exist. Even if we believe that God loves His people, we can still convince ourselves that He loves His other people, but not us. We? We're just museum pieces. 

But if God has conversations with the creatures, if He barters with them, if they speak and He listens and He speaks and they listen, if God plays with them...even them...even Leviathan, then there's no way to ever believe that a single one of His masterpieces was ever made just to be a museum piece. 

Every single one was created to be loved. 

Including you. 

Including me.