questions from (pre-) Genesis 1

My church recently started a sermon series on Genesis . . . and not surprisingly, the Holy Spirit's timing is perfect.  For the past 6 or so months, I've been wrestling through some questions that could be summed up as falling into the "pre-Genesis" category - and those thoughts came to the fore as this series got started.

[Sidebar: if you're looking for some sermons to listen to or this topic is of particular interest, I highly recommend listening to this series.  My pastor, David, is an extremely gifted communicator (& leader) and our church family is blessed by his teaching every time he preaches - and this series is no exception.  You can listen to the podcasts here - the first sermon in the Genesis series is "Before the Beginning."]

So back to my original train of thought: last Monday morning, I emailed David (my pastor) with some of the thoughts/questions rolling around in my head - and for some reason feel like I should include it here in case it can be helpful to anyone else . . . so here goes:

". . . So mid-sermon last night, I realized that there's a 3rd question that comes to mind for me when I think about creation & how everything got started - it's certainly not a unique one, but to be honest, is one that matters a lot more to me than literal 24-hour days & evolution.

Why did God create in the first place when He knew how messed up it would all become?  I get the theology of post-creation (ie - He wanted us to have free will, etc, etc).  But I've been wrestling the past 6+ months about why He put the wheels in motion in the first place. God was self-sufficient, complete, & not in need of anything . . . so why was this specific creation necessary?  I get that creation flows out of who He is - but why create a specific thing that you know is going to go very badly . . . doesn't that bring into question the nature of the creator?  ie - is His "need" to create more important than the implications of the creative act?  Is the end (the culmination of the story) really going to make all of the mess worthwhile?  From my limited human vantage point, I just don't think if I'd been in His shoes (presumptuous, I know) that I would have done it - I don't think I could have created something when I knew 100% that it would end up involving so much brokenness. 

I can answer my own question in "church-speak" - I know He's God . . . and that the fact that He's outside of time plays into this - and that (hopefully!) in the new creation we really will see how the Big Story makes all this right . . . but many days in our present reality, that just doesn't seem to be enough.

Maybe I'm the only one who over-analyzes life like this :) . . . but just wanted to throw that out there as the Genesis discussion continues . . . "

David writes a blog post each week about the sermon, and he decided to incorporate his response into last week's post - you can read it here.  As always, I appreciate his honesty, candor, and commitment to the Truth - and it's good to know that I'm not the only one out there who sometimes isn't sure what God is up to . . .