The Day God Breathed Life into Common Dirt

© Jeannie St. John Taylor

Was God thinking about you before the beginning? Did he see your face when nothing existed except an enormous earth-sized mass of water undulating in inky blackness? Did he know he planned to form you from clay even when there was no such thing as clay?

I think so. I think visions of your face moved through his mind while his Holy-Spirit-energy simmered over the watery abyss. Knowledge of the earth-home he planned to create, combined with knowledge of the amazing future he intended for you, filled him with pleasure.

Then he spoke.

Light exploded through the water. Every color of the rainbow shimmered around the pulsating prism and skimmed through the vapors floating above the water. Once more God spoke, splitting the light and darkness down the middle.

“Oh, wow!” God said. “Beautiful!”

Angels shouted with joy, even though they still didn’t know about you. They new nothing of lifeless clay and they certainly could not have imagined Living Clay.

The next day, when God spoke again, thick mists enveloping the earth lifted clear of the watery surface and swept upward with a mighty roar.

“Incredible!” God said.

He spoke a third time and the waters churned as rocks and clay came into being. Mountains broke the surface and surged heavenward. Water cascaded down sheer cliffs like an oversized waterfall crashing into oceans. Skyscraper-high waves whipped into foam. On the just-formed land, fir and oak pushed out of the dirt, stretching skyward. New apple trees hung heavy with red fruit. Underneath them, purple flowers swayed in the breeze, drenching the air with fragrance.

Gradually, the waves calmed. Orange and pink light skipping along swaying foam danced over the surface and reflected on the faces of the angels who watched in awe.  But the angels had no way of knowing the best was yet to come. How could they guess that the most common substance of the creation would become its magnum opus -- God’s masterpiece?

A smile played across God’s heart. “I love this,” he said.

On the fifth day, God spoke squirming, wiggling creatures into the oceans. Octopus snuggled into caves, whales slapped the blue surface with enormous tail fins, porpoises arched over the water, pink anemones swayed in shallow current, and schools of fish changed course in unison, light glinting off their scales. God spoke eagles onto high ledges, migrating geese into formation in the sky, and blue dragonflies over quiet ponds.

He watched his creatures at play and said, “Yes!”

On day six, God spoke and ordinary dirt morphed into lumbering elephants and roaring lions. Mud wriggled into squirrels that scampered up trees to chatter at blue jays.

Angels giggled with delight.

But before the day ended, God did something totally unexpected. Something so shocking all the angels held their breath. Instead of once more speaking his creation in to being, God did something very different. He stepped down onto the planet, knelt beside a stream, scooped up a glob of clay and began shaping it with his own hands. With love-light gleaming in his eyes, God the Potter prodded, squeezed, and smoothed. With his own holy fingers he incorporated perfection into every detail of this final creation. Then he bent over and breathed into the completed figure.

The creature stood and turned to his Daddy God. The angels looked deep into the man’s eyes and gasped. “He understands that God is his Father! God made the man in his own image and breathed his own Life into him! The animals are magnificent, but they aren’t alive! They don’t understand who God is. The man does. God created Living Clay from common dirt!”