24And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
31And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
This then is the sixth day. Lots going on. First God creates all the animals of the earth. He makes them of their kind and found that it was good. God makes everything before man so that the earth would be ready for man. He got the earth ready so that man would have what he needed. After God had made everything that we would need, he then made man.
Before creating man, God spoke to another and said that they would make man in their image. Who was God talking to? God was not talking to the angels as they were not in his image. He also created man in two forms, male and female. Not one form; but, two. Now we return to how he did all of his creations and the pattern begins to make sense.
God creates a thing and the variation begins. On the sixth day God created land animals and finally man and woman. Unlike any of his other creations, God gave man authority over the earth and all the other animals. It is only once man is created that God saw that his creation was "very good". Each creation by itself was good because it was part of a plan; but, only when man was created was it very good because by that time everything that was needed for us to advance was here.
This is the story of creation, the rest of the bible is the story of our evolution. Our evolution as individuals and as societies. The story of the creation of the earth is short and sweet because it is not the focus of the bible. It is as much as the people of the time needed. It showed that the earth was prepared for us.
Some questions that you might ask should include, "Why did he bother creating the earth for us, why not just have us in heaven?" The angels lived in heaven, so why did we have to live in separation on the earth? Good questions and to understand the answers we have to see how the rest of the bible plays out. Know that we were born to be challenged and laying around in heaven would not have challenged us. We would not have defined ourselves or found our limitations or what we were capable of on our own, we would be forever children.
A lot of this life is about finding one's own answers. We, humans, are special, we are in the image of God, we have to find our own answers and face our own challenges if we are going to be capable of having a good relationship with him. God does not want mindless zombies to interact with, he wants self defined, self aware beings who have their own perspective. He also does not want cruel and hateful people; but, we are left to determine who we are. What kind of person would you want to spend eternity with?
Life is hard at times, I know this and of course God knew how it would be for us. He knew something that we seem to forget, the strenuous life, a life of challenge can bring out the best of us. In our lives we should see our best and learn to control our worst, that takes practice, understanding and experience. In keeping with God's process, I would assume that overtime we would only see greater and greater extremes in people and we do.
The story of creation is minimal because we didn't need to know more. It does however give us an understanding of how God does things and our role in history. Before we are challenged in our lives, God has already given us everything we need. Life will not be easy, it will be challenging and this is good on many levels. Can you imagine growing without challenges or living for eternity without any challenges and nothing left to learn, these would be horrible things.
Eternity is a very long time. When I was young, my mother once told me that the concept of eternity was beyond her, that she couldn't conceive it. Eternity is the problem, how does God create a situation where an eternity exists that we could find continually changing and not become boring, not become hell and painful. That could only be if we were born capable of continually learning and growing ourselves. As I grew older, I continually attempted the idea of living forever, of how boring and hard that would be with nothing to surprise us. Love is the greatest feeling; but, if everyday was nothing but the feeling of love, we would lay down and die. Let me try and explain that.
Drugs, certain drugs can make us feel really good; but, people who take the ones that feel the best become lost to the world and themselves, they cease to grow and wither and die. You can get enough of a good thing. I have never had heroin or meth or exstacy, I have heard about people's experiences with them; but, I have never had them. I did however have four impacted wisdom teeth removed and they gave me Percodan for the pain. I don't like pills as a rule, I am a lightweight. I liked Percodan, I liked it a lot. After taking it for a week, I had to throw them all out and just live with the pain, I liked it too much and knew it. I should mention that I had two teeth removed at a time and it was done a week apart. During the second extraction they caused a slight fracture in my jaw.
Many want a life of pure joy and cannot accept a God that would create us to learn to find joy in less than perfect situations. We have the opportunity to prove ourselves in these times. We are facing many problems and have the opportunity to take short cuts (equivalent to drugs) or face the challenges and find the best that is within us. If we do find the best within us we will prepared for an eternity where things only get easier; but, never so easy that we seek being us. Be well.
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