Sunday morning, at about 7:30, as I was driving to Onida for our worship service, I saw something amazing. I looked to the west, and there was a big, full, orange moon near the horizon, just about to set. Then, I looked to the east, and there was the beautiful glow of the sun shortly before sunrise.
It was an incredibly beautiful sight. It reminded me again of how much beauty there is in God’s world. Whenever I think about that, it occurs to me how much God must enjoy the act of creating.
When you enjoy creating something, when you have fun doing it, that’s when you really let your creative juices flow. You don’t try to just create something that’s functional, you try to create something that will be beautiful. You don’t just create something that will get the job done, you create something that people will really like and enjoy.
To create something like that, though, you have to take some chances. If you want to create something beautiful, you can’t just take the easy way out. You can’t just settle for things that will work. Instead, you have to think, “What if I did this? What would happen if I did that? Would it work to do it this way instead of that way?” To create something beautiful you can’t just play it safe. You have to take some risks.
I wonder if that could be part of the reason God created humans with intelligence and with free will. That wasn’t the easy way out, after all. God could’ve created us in a much more functional way. God could’ve created us to just act on instinct, the way animals do. God could’ve created us in such a way that we would always love each other and do what’s right. Instead, God created us in such a way that we have the ability to make choices for ourselves. That, of course, includes the ability to make wrong choices, which we all do far more times than we realize or would like to admit.
God knew that was the risky way to do it. God knew that was not playing it safe. God knew there were times we’d make wrong choices. God knew there were times we’d mess things up. Still, God did it that way anyway.
I think maybe part of the reason God did it that way is that God did not want to just create us in a way that would be functional. God wanted to create us in a way that would be beautiful. That meant that God had to take some risks. If we were just creatures of instinct, if we had no choice but to do what’s right, humans and human society might be much more functional than it is now. But it would not be as beautiful.
God did not just create a functional world. God created a beautiful world. God did not just create functional people. God created beautiful people. Even when we make mistakes, even when we make bad choices, we’re still beautiful people living in a beautiful world. God created it that way, and God enjoyed creating it that way. After all, it was God who said creation is good. If that what God says, who are we to argue?
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