Carmichael SDA Church Bulletin

When marriage therapists are counseling struggling couples, one thing they often look at is how the couple defines their beginning. If they look back and talk about their history with some level of joy, there’s hope. But if, looking back, they see only frustration and sadness and grievance - it’s a bad sign. How we start is important, but so is how we remember our beginning.

Our text this week is Genesis chapter one - “In the beginning, God.” Our beginning as a species - existentially - is God. And the next couple thousand pages fill in more and more about who that God is. Which means your beginning goes far back beyond all the pain and grievance and joy passed down to you. Your beginning transcends who you are - you are from the imagination of the Creator who, in a hazy past, thought you up and wrote all the days of your life in His book. He sang over you and then came to find you when you lost your way. For some reason, you and I really matter to this mysterious Creator. It probably tells us something about Him and us. 

What would it mean to actually let that beginning be your beginning? To believe that what you know and remember is only the tip of the iceberg of who you are to the Creator? As we gather this Sabbath and I preach for the first time at Carmichael - and we have a bit of a beginning together here as well - my hope is that we encounter the deeper, most life-altering beginning that can change everything: “In the beginning….God.” God bless you, and I really look forward to meeting you this Sabbath!

Jeff Carlson