From the Book of Genesis, chapters 1 and 2
(Genesis 1-2.4)
 ...God created the heavens and the earth. Before there was anything, there was GOD. Before there was ice cream and chocolate sauce; or popcorn and pop; or computers, VCRs and TVs; or the sun, the moon and the stars - or even space itself - God was there. There wouldn't be anything at all if God hadn't thought it all up. But God DID think it all up. But in the very beginning there was no shape to God's creation at all, and everywhere it was black as night. So God said, "Let there be light!" And there was light. God saw that the light was good, and so he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "Day," and the darkness he called, "Night." And then for the first time ever, there was evening and there was morning. The first day in all of creation had come to an end and a new day was ready to begin. On the morning of the second day God put the blue sky between the deep waters that covered the earth and the blackness of space. At first, the earth was completely covered with water. There wasn't any dry ground anywhere. And there was evening and there was morning. The second day was over, and a new day was ready to begin. Morning came on the third day, and God gathered the waters together and made the dry land appear. God called the dry land "Earth" and the water he called "Sea." God looked at all that he had made, and he saw that it was good. It was all very good. Then God said, "Let there be plants on the earth, and all the things that grow!" And all the different kinds of plants and trees began to grow; apple trees and banana trees, grass and dandelions and roses, wheat to make bread, and corn so kids would have a vegetable they would like; but God made spinach and broccoli too. And God looked at all that he had made, and he saw that it was good, even the broccoli and the spinach. There was evening and there was morning, the third day. A new day was waiting to begin. On the fourth day God said, "Let the great lights appear in the sky!" (so we would know when to go to bed and when to get up for school). And just by his word, God made the sun and the moon and the stars. He made them out of nothing at all!   And God looked at all that he had made, and he saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, the fourth day. On the morning of the fifth day God said, "Let there be swimming things in the oceans and lakes, and birds in the air!" And the oceans were filled with hammerhead sharks and dolphins and whales. And in the sky there were robins and eagles, blue jays, cardinals and yellow bellied sapsuckers. Until then the earth must have been a very quiet place. But not any more! And God looked at all that he had made, and it was wonderfully good. There was evening and there was morning, now the fifth day had come and gone. Then God said, "Let there be animals upon the earth!" God made giraffes, and zebras, and lions and tigers and bears. He made moose with great big antlers, and little gophers and chipmunks and squirrels. He made monkeys swinging through the trees and giant gorillas sitting in the forests eating bananas. He made huge elephants, and he made hippopotamuses rolling around in the mud. How did God think of all those things?! What a great imagination God has! Then God said, "Let us make people in our own image" (God said, "us" because God the Father was there, and so was Jesus, and so was the Holy Spirit - but still he was just one God). So God made people in his own image. When you look at yourself in a mirror, you see an image of yourself. You see a reflection of what you are like. God made us in his image. We are a reflection of what God is like. When God sees us, he sees a reflection of himself. You are the image of God. Always remember that. |
So God looked at all that he had made, and he saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning, and that was the sixth day. On the morning of the seventh day God saw that the whole universe and everything in it was finished. Nothing else needed to be made. And it was all very good. And so God rested on the seventh day. He celebrated all the good work he had done. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy. What does that mean? When something is "holy," that means that it is special. It belongs to God. When God made the seventh day holy, he made it his day. It belongs to him. He made the seventh day a special day, different from all the rest. God rested from his work on the seventh day and enjoyed all that he had made. That is what God wants us to do too. On the seventh day of every week, God wants us to rest and enjoy all that he has made. That way we will always remember that all good things come from God. God made everything there is, and he made it to be good. Always remember that. God is so wonderful! |
Adam
...When God first made the Earth, God looked down and he saw that there was no one to take care of it.
So God reached down into the ground and scooped up some stuff from the earth. He took the stuff from the earth into his hands and formed it into a man. But the man just laid there on the ground like a lump of clay. There was no life in him. So God bent down again and breathed into the man - and the man became alive!
The man's body was made from the earth, but his life came from the breath of God. Always remember that. Your life is the breath of God.
God called the man, 'Adam.'
Then God planted a garden in Eden for Adam to live in. And since God is God, he is a pretty good gardener. He planted all kinds of trees in his garden; apple trees, and pear trees, banana trees and mango trees, fig trees and who knows what other kinds of trees in his garden. God wanted to make sure there was plenty of good things to eat. (Don't ask me why he didn't plant any candy trees!).
In the middle of the garden God also planted two special trees. One was called the Tree of Life, and the other was called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
And God made a stream of clear, cool water to flow through the middle of the garden to water it and keep it green.
Then God brought Adam to the garden and he told him, "Take care of my garden. You may eat the fruit of any of the trees that I have made to grow there. But be careful. Do not eat any of the fruit from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If you eat any of that fruit, you will die."
So Adam began to live and work in the garden God had made for him.
The garden was a wonderful, beautiful place.
But Adam was lonely.
Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:18-25)
Even though the garden God had made for him was the most beautiful place there could ever be, Adam was lonely.
Adam needed some company. So God reached into the ground again and took some more stuff from the earth. This time he made every kind of animal and every kind of bird. He brought them all to Adam to see what he would call them.
It must have taken a long, long time to think up all those names!
Luckily, he didn't call them things like 'Foo Foo' or 'Snuggems' or 'Pooky' or anything like that. Instead, he called them 'gerbils' and 'rabbits' and 'rhinoceroses.' And he called the birds 'eagles' and 'egrets' and 'ruby throated warblers.'
Well, actually, we don't know WHAT Adam named them. He didn't speak English. But he named each kind, and that's important because people are the only ones that name things. Your dog knows what a squirrel is, but he doesn't call it a squirrel. He just barks at it! But naming things is one of the things that shows we are different from all the other creatures that God made.
But even with all the animals around to keep him company, God saw that Adam was still sad. Monkeys are fun to play with, but they don't have very much to say... and they have terrible table manners.
So God made Adam fall asleep (he must have conked him on the head or something), and while Adam was sleeping, God took one of his ribs.
God took Adam's rib and he made a woman from it.
When Adam woke up, God brought Eve to him (that's what Adam named her later on), and Adam said, "At last! Here is someone like me! Her bones were made from my bones, and her body was made from my body. I will call her 'woman' because that means she was taken out of man."
At last Adam was happy.
And so Adam and Eve lived together in God's garden. And do you know what? They were naked and nobody cared... or thought it was funny!
But that's another story...
Adam, Eve, Snake (Genesis 3.1-13)
BIG TROUBLE
A Sad Day (Genesis 3.14-24)(Genesis 3.14-24)    
|
Cain & Abel (Genesis 4.1-16)
 Now they were going to have to work hard for their food and their clothes. And because of their sin, so would every one who ever lives. So it happened one day that Cain and Abel brought gifts to God to thank him for all the good things he had done for them. They built an altar for a sacrifice.
Cain brought some of the things he had grown. He brought some wheat, and grapes and figs and things like that, and he burned them on the altar to give to God. Abel brought the first lamb born to one of his sheep.  God was happy with Abel's gift, because he saw that Abel really wanted to please God and always do what God wanted.  Later that day God found Cain working in the hot sun. God said to him, "Where is your brother Abel?" Noah (Genesis 6.9 - 7.10) (Genesis 6.9 - 7.10) It was a long, long time since the days when God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, and things had changed. Everyone forgot about God. They didn't pray to him anymore. They didn't care about pleasing him. All they cared about was themsleves. All they cared about was getting what they wanted when they wanted it. And after a while it didn't matter if anyone had to get hurt to get it. And the world became a terrible place. It wasn't safe to go out into the streets anymore. Robbers and bandits would jump on you and take your loaf of bread. And if they beat you up, no one would stop to help. They would just walk by, and maybe take the apple you had in your pocket too. People were lying and cheating - and even killing each other - everywhere. There was no safe place. You weren't even safe in your own bed at night. God's beautiful world became a mean, awful, scary place to live. That's what happens when people forget about God.  But God was watching.... He saw what a terrible place the world had become. He saw that everyone was lying, and cheating, and killing. He saw that no one cared about doing what was good and right anymore. And God knew that in their hearts all they wanted to do was evil and bad. But... God saw one good man. His name was Noah. Noah still cared about God. He listened to God, and he always tried to do what God said. And God was pleased with Noah. God said to Noah, "Noah, I have decided to put an end to this mess people have made of my world, and start all over." So God said to Noah, "I want you to build a boat." It was going to be a very BIG boat. God told Noah exactly how to make it. It was going to be longer than a football field, and higher than a three story house. It was going to have one door, and a window all around beneath the roof. God called the boat an "ark." This was going to be a big job for a 500 year old man! That's how old Noah was when God gave him his little project to do. Now, Noah might have thought, "This job is too big, and I am too old!" And he didn't even have any power tools out back in his shed. But he did have God, and with God on your side, anything is possible. So Noah went right to work. He did everything just as God had told him to.  His neighbors must have thought he was crazy. While they were spending all their time doing wicked things just to please themselves, Noah was hard at work, pleasing God. Noah kept on working, day after day, year after year. And day after day, year after year, people laughed at him. And then one day Noah put down his hammer. The ark was finished.  There it was, this giant boat, resting on dry land - and no lake in sight! What was God thinking? He was thinking he had another job for Noah! A really BIG job. God said to Noah, "Now I want you to find two of every kind of animal, a male and a female, and bring them into the ark. And bring enough food for them all too." (God also told Noah to bring extra pairs of some animals, some for food, and some for sacrifices.) Just think what a noise that must have been. Cows mooing. Lions roaring. Dogs barking. Elephants trumpeting - all at once. What a noise! And what a mess! (It must have smelled pretty bad too...) And how do you keep the tigers from eating the little lambs? Still, with God's help, Noah did it all, just as God told him to. Until finally there was just one more animal to get up onto the ark.  Noah was pushing on the wrinkly behind of a big grumpy elephant - an elephant who really didn't want to go on a cruise - when Noah felt a drop of rain hit his head.  |
THE GREAT FLOOD
NOAH LOOKED UP!!!!! The sky was turning gray, and Noah thought to himself, “It looks like rain.” And so, with one, big last push, he got that reluctant elephant up into the ark. Whew! 100 years is a long time to work on one job! Noah sat down by the door of the ark and wiped the sweat from his forehead. At last he was finished with all that God had asked him to do. Noah was 600 years old when he did all that God asked him to. Seven days went by, one for each day it took to make the word God was about wash clean. And then the flood came. “Now it’s time for you and your family to get into the ark!” The Lord said to Noah. So Noah and his wife, and his three sons; Shem, Ham, and Japheth and their wives; all got into the ark. Then the Lord himself reached down from heaven and shut the door.  Water poured from the sky and rushed up from the ground. It rained. And rained. And rained. The Great Flood had come. Lightning flashed. Thunder crashed. The winds blew huge waves across the water. The water lifted the giant wooden boat from the ground. It lifted it above Noah’s house. It lifted it above the trees in his backyard. The ark tossed in the storm above Noah's neighbor’s house, above the whole town, and everyone who lived there. It rained for forty days and forty nights.  It rained so hard that Noah’s ark floated above even the highest mountains. There was no dry ground left at all. And everything that breathed on the earth died. What terrible things happen when people sin. |
And so.... Noah and his family waited in the ark. Up and down, and up and down, they tossed on the waves. Everywhere they looked, they saw nothing but water.  For 150 days the ark tossed on those waves. That’s longer than a whole summer vacation. A lot longer. Only this couldn’t have been much of a vacation. What do you suppose they did all day? There wasn’t cable TV to watch. No portable CD players to listen to. No video games to play. Maybe that’s when Shuffleboard and “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” were invented. I’ll bet the donkey wasn’t too happy about that. But there was probably enough work to do every day, just trying to keep all those animals fed and the ark cleaned up.  And maybe at the end of a long day, they sat around the kitchen fire and told stories, and tried to remember what it was like to take a walk through the trees on a warm summer evening. But with the racket of all those animals, and the creaking of the heavy wooden beams of the ark, how did they get to sleep at night? And how did they keep from rolling out of their beds? Maybe they didn’t even HAVE beds. But God hadn’t forgotten about them. One day God caused a warm wind to blow. The rain stopped, and the water began to go down. It was another 150 days before the ark came to rest on the very top of a mountain called Ararat.  Noah and his family and all those animals had all been together in that ark for almost a year! After 40 more days, Noah opened the window of the ark and let a raven fly out. He wanted to see whether it could find some dry ground. Noah waited and waited, but the raven never came back. So Noah tried again. This time he sent out a dove. The dove flew around and around. But it couldn't find any dry ground, and it had to come back. Noah waited seven more days, and then he let the dove fly out again. That evening the dove came back with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. That was a sign for Noah. Now he knew the water had gone down, because the dove had found an olive bush growing on dry land. Noah waited another seven days, and then he sent the dove out again. This time it didn't come back. It had found a new place to live. Finally, God told Noah it was all right to leave the ark. Noah opened the door, and all those animals rushed out! They found new homes in the world God had washed clean. God had saved them! God provided the ark, and it had brought them all safely through the water. It carried them to a new life.  Noah was 601 years old when he left the ark. And was he ever glad to be walking on dry ground again! |
And so.... Noah and his family waited in the ark. Up and down, and up and down, they tossed on the waves. Everywhere they looked, they saw nothing but water. For 150 days the ark tossed on those waves. That’s longer than a whole summer vacation. A lot longer. Only this couldn’t have been much of a vacation. What do you suppose they did all day? There wasn’t cable TV to watch. No portable CD players to listen to. No video games to play. Maybe that’s when Shuffleboard and “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” were invented. I’ll bet the donkey wasn’t too happy about that. But there was probably enough work to do every day, just trying to keep all those animals fed and the ark cleaned up. And maybe at the end of a long day, they sat around the kitchen fire and told stories, and tried to remember what it was like to take a walk through the trees on a warm summer evening. But with the racket of all those animals, and the creaking of the heavy wooden beams of the ark, how did they get to sleep at night? And how did they keep from rolling out of their beds? Maybe they didn’t even HAVE beds. But God hadn’t forgotten about them. One day God caused a warm wind to blow. The rain stopped, and the water began to go down. It was another 150 days before the ark came to rest on the very top of a mountain called Ararat. Noah and his family and all those animals had all been together in that ark for almost a year! After 40 more days, Noah opened the window of the ark and let a raven fly out. He wanted to see whether it could find some dry ground. Noah waited and waited, but the raven never came back. So Noah tried again. This time he sent out a dove. The dove flew around and around. But it couldn't find any dry ground, and it had to come back. Noah waited seven more days, and then he let the dove fly out again. That evening the dove came back with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. That was a sign for Noah. Now he knew the water had gone down, because the dove had found an olive bush growing on dry land. Noah waited another seven days, and then he sent the dove out again. This time it didn't come back. It had found a new place to live. Finally, God told Noah it was all right to leave the ark. Noah opened the door, and all those animals rushed out! They found new homes in the world God had washed clean. God had saved them! God provided the ark, and it had brought them all safely through the water. It carried them to a new life. Noah was 601 years old when he left the ark. And was he ever glad to be walking on dry ground again! |
AREN'T WE WONDERFUL? “Yes! Aren’t we great!” “Splendid!” “We are absolutely splendiferous! Why, we are SO wonderful, let’s build a magnificent city to show just how wonderful we are!” Oh, oh. The people who came after Noah were at it again. How quickly they forgot that everything they had came from God. And God is far, far more wonderful than they were. But still, they said one to another, “Let’s build a glorious city to ourselves. And in that city, let’s build a tower that reaches into heaven!” “Splendid idea!” “Top rate!” “Excellent!” And so they all agreed. And, the thing was, they COULD all agree, because in the time after the flood, everyone spoke the same language. They all could work together. And when you work together, you can do almost anything. (But that can be dangerous too, when you don’t do the right thing.)  So one day God came to visit the magnificent city the people were building, and to see the great tower. “This isn’t good,” God said. “Because they all speak the same language, there won’t be anything they can’t do! “Every great thing they do, they will think that they are even greater - and there will be no end to the trouble that will bring. We will have to put a stop to this.” (God said, “We” because remember, there is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. There is one God, but three persons together as one God.) And so right then, God began to confuse the language of the people on earth. People started calling things by different names. “Hand me that hammer,” one worker said to the other one day under the hot sun, while they were working together way up on the tower. And the other worker handed him a brick instead. He didn’t know what the other worker was talking about anymore. “No! No! You dummy! Not a brick, a HAMMER!” (Have you ever noticed how we always think there is something wrong with the OTHER person when they can’t understand us - and that if we just speak LOUDER they will!). Well, they couldn’t get much work done like that! And soon the people weren’t getting along so well anymore. They quit building the great city and the tower. All the people that spoke one new language decided to get together and move to a new place, while the people who spoke another language went to find a nice place somewhere else. And because of that, people began to move all over the earth. So the magnificent tower never got finished.  It became known as the tower of Babel (“Babel” is like the Hebrew word for confusion), because that’s where God made all the people’s language sound like babbling to each other. |
