Seeds Will Grow

As we near the end of the year, I’m meditating on “the beginning”, from the first verses of the book of Genesis (no, not Jacob Zuma’s reading, though it did come to mind!).

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

It’s hard to imagine God created this world just for it to go so wrong. Philip, a colleague in Uganda, reflected on that in a blog post recently, and I so appreciate that he shared his grappling with me. I don’t actually believe God intended the world to be the mess it is. I believe the goal was right relationships and harmonious flourishing for all things, but we humans have got some amazing cycles of harm going on—if you haven’t noticed 🙄—which brings us to the next part…

“Now the earth was formless and empty,
darkness was over the surface of the deep.”

I feel this verse like an ache in my bones. In 2025, so many things have been undone. So many institutions unmade. So many families disrupted. So many lives snuffed out. This darkness feels deep and heavy. Maybe the original darkness felt different than this current darkness? I don’t know.

What happened next, in the darkness?

“The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

The Spirit of God. From the Hebrew word “ruah,” the breath of God.

“Hovering” sounds gentle. I envision hummingbirds and dragonflies – think of holding space in hard conversations.

What about “the waters“? I remember Jesus’ words about two kinds of birth—one of the water and one of the spirit. The water birth is the natural one. The spirit is—well—a spiritual birth. Could that water, over which the spirit hovers, represent the physical stuff in the middle of which we live?

If God’s spirit was hovering over the waters of our natural world, what did that mean? God was present. God was near. God was holding space. What result would that bring?

“And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”



This is where the spiritual birth happens. God speaks and there is light. God’s word—the breath from God’s mouth—births the new.

Oh how I long for spiritual birth in our world today! I see so much religious nonsense that masquerades as righteousness, but it is unjust and unfeeling—without hope and without God in this world. It is full of natural logic—cruel and vindictive—oppressive and greedy—dominating and unkind. It is spiritually dead. It reminds me of other things Jesus said (also spoken to religious leaders, like the bit about spiritual birth above):

“You study the Scriptures diligently
because you think that in them you have eternal life.
These are the very Scriptures that testify about me,
yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”

Some of the Church is so convinced and arrogant in its exposition of the Scriptures that it misses the entire point—the way of Jesus. This reminds me of another passage, written by Jesus’ dear friend, John:

“God is love.
Whoever lives in love
lives in God,
and God in them.”

So, Creator God hovered above our natural world, full of darkness. God’s spirit was there. God came near. God was holding space. Creator God then spoke and birthed light:

“In the beginning
was the word.
The word was with God
and the word was God…
In him was life,
and that life was
the light of men.”

My mind connects this scene to the new birth of spiritual life that Jesus offered. This offer seems profoundly hopeful to me as I grieve the cruelty and death in our natural world today. I want spiritual awakening—not the counterfeit revival that drives us deeper into tribes and religious strife—but the transformative spiritual life in the way of Jesus that overflows with love for friend and foe—that tears down every wall of division and creates a new humanity (that’s how Paul spoke of Jesus’ purpose).

My meditation wraps up with the end of the scene in Genesis:

“God saw that the light was good,
and God separated the light from the darkness.”

Just when I just thought I was getting past dichotomies, I find God introduce a stark division. God who created light now separates it from the darkness. You go here. And you, there.

This is probably just speaking about the day and the night—our natural 24 hour cycle. But, so far in this meditation, I’ve been drawing connections to spiritual life as I connect Jesus’ words to this story. If natural light is separated from natural darkness—is spiritual light being separated from spiritual darkness evidence of God’s presence? Does God separate?

This idea of God separating things reminds me once more of a story Jesus told, about a farmer who planted wheat in the fields. The farmer’s enemy sneaked into the field overnight and planted tares, a poisonous plant (also called “darnel”) that looks much like wheat, but is not the same. When the farm workers discovered that tares were growing up in the field amidst the wheat, they asked the farmer what to do.

Rather than trying to uproot the tares and risk uprooting wheat alongside it, the farmer was patient. The farmer instructed them to cultivate the crop until harvest time, at which point they would separate the wheat from the tares. Jesus adds at the end of his story, “Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age.  The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness,  and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

In the beginning, God hovers over the darkness. God breaths his Word. The light is born. God calls it good. And it is God who separates the light from the darkness.

Whew. It’s not my job.

I don’t get to lump you over there in spiritual darkness or you over there in spiritual light. I can’t discern your thoughts and intentions. Just as my words don’t give light or birth spiritual life, just as I have no power to purify or transform anyone else, I am not judge and jury.

But, there is light. There is darkness. There is a separation.

I believe the same word of God that breathed light into darkness in the beginning can bring light in the darkness of our hurting world. To me, this feels like hope in late 2025. This is my prayer for our world.

What are your reflections and thoughts on “the beginning”? Feel free to drop them in the comments or email if you’d like to dialogue further.

If you need light and spiritual life in a dark place, invite God to speak and see what is birthed. I am wishing you well.

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