“A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it is to be God.”
~ Sidney Sheldon
The symbol for this first day of Advent is a picture of the earth. It is the symbol for God the Father, for creation. Sidney Sheldon captured it so eloquently when he stated, “A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it is to be God.”
Think about it. In the beginning, there was nothing. Just a formless void. Nothing existed. Nothing, that is, but God. And then, God began to work. He created all things out of nothing, shaping the great abyss and forming constellations. In the process, he created our earth. It has to be more than mere coincidence that our planet is positioned where it is so that it gets the proper amount of warmth from the sun, protection by the moon, and the exactly correct amount of elements to bring forth and sustain life.
God created all that we see and know. He did so because of His great love for us. He fashioned everything in incredible beauty and it truly fills us with astonishment and awe.
I remember one of the first times that I was filled with awe at the immensity of God’s creation. I was born and raised in Northwest Indiana. For all practical purposes, I’m a “city boy”. I may not have been raised in a big city like Chicago; however, I was not raised in distant rural places. I was used to a bit of crowding of houses in the town in which I lived and the communities around me. The lights that guided me were those wonderful contraptions called street lights.
When I was growing up, I, like so many others in town, knew it was time to go home when the street lights turned on. The sun went down, the lights came on, and we had fifteen minutes to find our way back home or there would be trouble.
Those lights guided me; but, they also blocked out a huge immensity of God’s grandeur. I was finally introduced to that immensity the first time my dad took my younger brother and me on vacation with our older brothers. We went to Arkansas to fish. The first night, on the lake, I was blown away. There were zero street lights around us so we could see the stars – all the stars – twinkling in the firmament. It was the first time in my life that I realized how small we all were and how grand God was.
A writer or a composer begins with a blank piece of paper. That writer or composer begins to put notes or writing on the paper to create a story or a symphony. There can be chaos in the beginning as the elements get put into place. Yet, even the greatest symphony or the grandest story cannot begin to compare to the creative genius of God.
FAITH ACTION: Think about the beauties of creation that you most admire and take the time this day to give God the thanks that are His due.