creation

Last night, as I said in yesterday's post, I was round with the couple I've been meeting with now for almost a year.

Except, now it's two couples. The one-to-one sort of thing that it was has grown into a kind of group I suppose. In fact, there's been a lot of growth in loads of different ways. Which leaves me really thrilled and also humbled by it all. God so very evidently working in our lives.

One of the ways there's been some striking growth is in the way we pray. From the first time we met we ended with a prayer.

I prayed. Me being the minister and that sort of thing. But, I mean, they asked me to, it wasn't something ritually imposed or anything like that.

But now they pray as well. It's wonderful! Such unpretentious speaking to the Lord. We all pray. All five of us now.

A week or so ago, we'd prayed about Paul's nephew. This poor young lad had had a really nasty burn at school. There were fears he might lose his thumb and there was the prospect of a fairly major skin graft.

So we'd joined with each other and asked God to bring his healing to bear upon the boy.

And last night we learned that when the doctors took the bandage off they were themselves amazed at how his hand had so remarkably improved. No problem with the thumb. No need for any skin graft at all!

We were looking at Genesis 1. In the beginning God created. From the beginning, too. That's just what he does. And here, he'd done it again.

Those words from the start of Genesis 1 have been with me all through today. There have been these past few days that many little things reminding me that sometimes God just draws a line and says - Right, now we'll start again.

And he does. He starts his whole creative work again. In our lives and situations.

Which are often like the earth had been, we're told, when first God started work. Without form and void and only darkness everywhere.

And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

I love that little sentence. That's the little line God draws to say it's time we sort of get ourselves all ready for the action to begin. God's action. God's creative, re-creative action.

When he starts to put things right, to sort things out and open up a future which at present seems impossible.

This morning was just like that. A hopeless-looking, pain-filled situation. One that's long since lost its 'shape' and 'form' and now is far from being remotely like what it was meant to be and what the person longed that it might be.

And the person involved left desolate, empty, and dry. The life and sparkle all but sucked completely out of her over all these many months.

And the prospect just so desperately bleak.

Formless. Void. And dark.

And this morning it was like God simply said again - the Spirit of God is hovering over the waters. Ready for action, which is now about to begin.

I was able to say that I would help and was ready to be involved. There are steps to be taken and now is the time. Creation beginning again.

The start of a whole new work of God, which bit by bit will bring about a future that could scarcely be imagined were it not for God's own Spirit being so mightily at work.

It's amazing to see God at work. Right there in the dark, in the formlessness, emptiness, void.

The Spirit of God hovering over the waters!

It was something the same at night. Albeit in a very different context from the one there was this morning.

A couple who've been coming here each Sunday for the past few weeks. Her family a mess, if such family life existed now at all. And his own background, different in its way, but far from being the way that he'd have wished the thing to be.

And wanting to start again. Marriage. But marriage begun with the blessing and presence of God.

The girl started coming to share in our worship a few months back. And, though she lives a distance away, she kept coming back. She felt, having searched through the city, she felt that this was a place and a people where she could belong.

He's "not religious at all". Neither am I, of course! But he started coming along. From choice, he said. Looking for meaning. Looking for life. And starting to sense what it maybe was like to be free at last.

He was there at worship this Sunday morning past. And moved to tears. The message was so personal, so much about himself.

The Spirit of God hovering over the waters.

I must have had a good two hours with the two of them.

And the more we talked the more it seemed to me that we now were her 'family' and we could now be helping with the many practicalities there are in getting married.

A place for the reception. Arrangements for the flowers. Things like that. "I mean, £80 for a bouquet!" she exclaimed. "When I could walk into Tesco and get the flowers for less than a quarter of that. I think I'll make the bouquet myself!"

Marriage isn't cheap these days! And here's a girl without a family network to support her in the many different aspects of the day. I said we'd gladly help her out - and make the whole thing fun for them and for the friends they're keen to have along.

Formless, void and dark. In a sense, that's where they're coming from, this pair. And the presence of the Spirit of God, 'hovering over the waters', was really just so palpable, I almost heard the flapping of his wings!

In the beginning, and from the beginning, God is the one who creates.

Days like this are really very humbling when I see the Lord being very much at work in just that way.

And find myself, as every single follower of Jesus gets to be, a part of what he does.