And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. . .

Genesis 1:1-2 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (2) And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 

 To begin a new year, with a new beginning in reading my Bible. . . I have never understood this passage. . . and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. . . Many questions come to my mind.  Why does the Spirit of God move upon the face of the waters? Why would the Spirit of God be doing this? What purpose was there for Him to be acting this way? How does the Spirit of God move at all? God is omnipresent. He is everywhere. How does an entity which is everywhere move?

To move, one changes location from where you are, to where you are not. If you are already everywhere, how do you move?

 But tonight I looked up the Hebrew word translated here as ‘moved’. From Gesenius’s Hebrew lexicon: To be soft. . . to be moved, to be affected. . . specially - with the feelings of tender love, hence to cherish. . . to brood over young ones, to cherish young (as an eagle).

 So the Spirit of God was not aimlessly and depressingly hovering over the sterile, lifeless waters of a blind dark creation, but rather He paused. . . greatly affected. . .He did not move, rather He was greatly moved “with feelings of tender love.” Cherishing. . . anticipating. . . Twas night before creation, and all through His House, not a created thing was stirring. . . not even a mouse.

 In my minds eye, I have only the dimmest awareness of the gladness in God’s heart at this moment. Every child’s Christmas hopes rolled into one, are but a candle to the hurricane of God’s hopes and dreams for His creation. No. . . His Spirit did not dance in some mystic ritual, in that last lightless eve. He tenderly and thoughtfully brooded as a mother bird over her young. . . Seeing even then, you and I before His eyes. . .

The Word of God continually amazes me. . . It is never ending in its depth. . .

I love you my God. . .
Thank you for your Word to us. . .

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