God’s Mission in Genesis

Beloved People of God,

Each generation is capable of passing on gifts to the next. At first, the value of those gifts often those gifts go unnoticed. For example, it was really important to my mother that I learn to sew. Perhaps it was because growing up on a farm to parents who’d gone through the Great Depression made basic skills and frugality paramount to my mother. She was surely right, as my little hyperactive body was set on pushing my shorts and shirts to their breaking point. My childhood was held together by a stitch and a prayer!

People might think choosing the right stitch or where to join the pieces of cloth might by the trickier part of sewing, but for me, it’s always been threading the needle. I’ve got to slow down enough to get the thin thread through—what can feel like—an impassible needle’s eye. The hardest thing to do, most of the time, is starting out well. I think this is equally true of how we read the Bible and understand the mission of God. If you’ll allow me a moment to mix my metaphors, when we rush our reading of Scripture, we start sewing before the thread's through the needle. We weave the disconnected needle through the material, in and out of pages and passages, but no seam emerges; no connection is made.

Together, we are going back to the beginning, back to the book of Genesis. We are going to pick up the thread of God’s mission and see how it reveals the character of God and our calling as His image bearers in this world; and as we unpack this gift given to us, let’s make sure we keep passing it on to the next.

For His Name’s Sake,

Brett