Genesis & Tornadoes

What a way to begin the story of God and God's creation. Genesis lays it all out for us. God is the source of all creation and proclaims that it's all good. God creates humans in his image, giving us the unique ability to make our own choices and pull away.  Being created in God's image comes with a calling: you will be blessed by being a blessing to others. The story of Abraham and Sarah and their family over the generations reveals that our families are not quite so flawed after all. If God can do amazing things through them, God will do amazing things through us as well.

I love then the way Genesis ends. Joseph, the unjustly mistreated favorite son of Jacob, forgives his brothers and shares a truth about God that still gives us hope.

Then [Joseph's] brothers also wept, fell down before him, and said, "We are here as your slaves." But Joseph said to them, "Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today. So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones." In this way he reassured them, speaking kindly to them. - Genesis 50:18-21

Being human means living the ups and downs of life. At times we feel like we are king of the world. David felt that way in Psalm 8.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. - Psalm 8:3-5

At other times we know we deserve no forgiveness and feel deep bitterness and regret for our actions. That's the way Joseph's brothers felt at the end of Genesis. But God never gives up.

Consider these examples Genesis:
1. Adam & Eve eat the forbidden fruit, are banished from the Garden, but God still provides for them.
2. Cain murders his brother and is banished to wander, but God protects him from those who would kill him.
3. The wickedness of humanity moves God to flood the earth, but God saves Noah and promises never again by giving us the sign of the rainbow.
4. Abraham and Sarah take matters into their own hands and Abraham fathers a son Ishmael through Hagar, but God still blesses them with a son Issac.
5. Jacob tricks his father Issac into giving him the blessing, but God still creates a great nation through him.
6. The brothers of Joseph sell him into slavery, but God makes sure that they eventually will be saved from starvation through him.

I think of the tornadoes that struck central Illinois this past Sunday and I know that many families are devastated. Genesis reveals that God has not abandoned them. God will work through such disasters for good. In Christ, God is one with those who have perished. Look for the stories to come out in the aftermath of the tornado and the other disasters that surround us, and find our Creator God of Genesis in action.