God's Time Management -- Seven Days

Why create the universe in seven days?

First, let me be clear that I think the seven days are symbolic, metaphorical truth -- not history or science. People of faith who insist that the creation story of Genesis One is a descriptive account of how it really happened find themselves doing odd gymnasics to make scientific findings fit with their absolute conviction of the literal seven day creation.

My personal favorite: "God put the dinosaur bones in the earth to test our faith." Right.

Instead, I believe in a much more complex God...a God who dances at the subatomic level, who continues to create through the ever evolving cosmos, who loves the wonders of scientific and mathematical truth. Religion explores the question of who while science explores the question of how.

That said, why seven days? Seven is a symbolic number, from the beginning to the end of the Bible...showing up again in the book of Revelation. Seven represents wholeness, completion. Ancient people grooved on symbolic numbers. (More on that later, when we explore the number forty....)

Beyond that, I think the seven days are meant to be instructive: God modeling through good example how to undertake a humongous project of intimidating scale.

When the project seems too much to do...break it into managable pieces. No one said you had to create the whole universe in one sitting. Start with something easy, like light. Do a little bit every day until you look back and realize the whole project is done.

One of the formative stories of my life: the boy sent by his uncle to clear a field by hand. Every day he goes to the field, becomes exhausted by the immensity of the job, curls up and goes to sleep. Finally, after several days, the uncle comes to check his progress, wakes him up and tells him, "If you had cleared a spot the size of the ground you slept upon each day, you would be almost done by now."

This story, and the story of the creation of the universe, have helped me march through life, one step at a time. Most of the time, remembering these tales, I've been able to stay focused on the job at hand without becoming too overwhelmed by all that needs doing.

It has made all the difference.