How to Eat an Elephant

Do you know how to eat an elephant?  Well, you eat it just one bite at a time!  I know you must have at least smiled at that if not giggled to yourself, but it's true!  I look at reading the Bible just that way.  All my life I have thought I would be able to read through the Bible in a year and have yet to accomplish it.  However, every year, at some point, I begin to read and I always read, at some point, the first chapter of Genesis.  Well, this year I read it and realized some new things!  Hard to believe that I would come up with something new out of "God created this and God created that", huh?  Well, first let me ask you, did you ever really think about the fact that God created light and darkness on one day without having created the sun, moon and stars?  He named them day and night and that was all He did that day. Let's go back one more step.  vs1 " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."  So earth existed at this point with nothing on it but water - and deep water at that!  The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters - for what reason?  Was He waiting for something to rise up out of the waters?  Perhaps he was hovering because it was such utter and complete darkness that He had to hover to try and see!  Of course, it could be that He was hovering because He was pondering what He was going to do first with this heavens and earth stuff He had begun.  I imagine He wasn't all to impressed with everything as of yet because it is not stated that He looked at the heavens and earth and saw that they were good like He did with all the other things he created later on.
After there had been enough hovering, "God said, "Let there be light" and there was light.  GOD SAW THAT IT WAS GOOD, and he separated the light from the darkness.  God called the light "day", and the darkness he called "night". And there was evening and there was morning - the first day." vs. 3-5   That's it.  No big pomp and circumstance or multitude of things created, just "Let there be light" and there was so we now have day and night and that's enough for today!  Kind of funny.  Did he make the sun and moon that day?  No, he saved that for another time. So this was also the creation of "time" in a sense for at this point we still have no idea how long a "day" was in God's time frame, as it could have been anything - hours, days, weeks.  Who knows!
The next day God separated water from water, which is interesting from a scientific perspective in that the water being referred to was in the sky and on the earth.  So perhaps this is where he created gravity, too!  Because land is not created on this day but only the separation of sky from the water body which was earth at this point.  And that was all he did on the second day (envision God stretching now).
The third day arrives with light and now God decides that perhaps the water should somehow be separated in and of itself so He says, ""Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let the dry ground appear." And it was so.  God called the dry ground "land", and the gathered waters he called "seas". And God saw that it was good."  The He got a little more energetic and decided to create some stuff to put on the dry ground, which you will note is dry now even after it had been submersed under water for who knows how long? What did he put on the land?  Seed-bearing plants and trees.  Plants that produced all types of fruits according to their various kinds and then "God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning - the third day."  Are you paying attention to how the day goes, by the way?  It's not morning and evening but rather evening and morning.  So God considered the night for the first part of the day and the day for the second part.  Sort of coinsides with the military clock, huh?
Kind of interesting how many things we have to think about in just the first 13 verses!  Now, I don't pretend to have all the answers and I don't want any of us to dwell on these questions but merely to consider them because  when we get to heaven, those of us who are born again, we will know what the angels know and have answers to the all the things we have wondered about.  And that will be soon enough! So, I'll leave you with that bunch of bites for today and will be back with more later:)