Beginning

I didn’t make the 90-day deadline, but I have finished the Bible, cover to cover. This is the first time that I’ve attempted a straight through reading of the Bible and I am very glad that I did. Over the next few weeks, I’d like to share some of the things that I think I learned through this experience. Some of them from the text, others from the effort.


I began at the beginning. An intentional effort to read through the Bible is a pretty big task. It doesn’t read quite like other books, and it is certainly a lengthy tome. Reading from the beginning, one gets a sense of the scope as the beginning is… well, the beginning. In the beginning, God created. That alone gives quite a perspective on life. I remember reading several years ago the book “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson. I expected a great history of human development on Earth. Instead I found nothing close to humans covered until chapter 29… out of 30. But I was hooked by the second page:

This story in Genesis at the so called beginning encompasses a story that may be billions of years old. Eons of history developing before this place would be close to ready for inhabitants of our kind to dwell. And here, in Genesis, over just a few verses, we are given but a glimpse of this story. Like a master storyteller, we’re left with thousands of years to fill in the gaps, to speculate on our origins, to wonder how and why we are finally here. But the real importance is that we are, and now that we understand that, what comes next.

That is how I understand the Bible. So many of us place so much value on the literal insight of this beginning, but ultimately, I was created for relationship with God. That’s all I need to know to begin the journey.

But, “in the beginning, God created.” “And so, from nothing, our universe begins.” Folks, this is big. We get to join the story at the beginning, but I have a feeling this “beginning” is just where it starts to matter for us. How much more before or after, what grand thing have we found ourselves in the middle of. This isn’t a life to be dismissed, there’s something bigger going on here, and I want to find myself in it.