In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
Several years ago (when your parents were still children) Grandpa gave me a very pretty quilt. It had been made by a group of elderly ladies who lived at the retirement home where I worked at that time. I would see them working on this quilt in the common sewing room, but I didn't know it was for me! It took them quite a while to cut all the little pieces and sew them together to make the finished product.
This quilt is a good illustration of a very important point. Just by looking at the quilt, you can tell that it didn't just happen by itself.
There is a theory, called evolution, that is taught in public schools. It teaches that everything in the world just happened by accident. The Torah (which is the Word of the Most High God) teaches us that the Most High is the One who made the world and everything in it. We are going to study about God's creation as told in the first couple chapters of Genesis.
Way back in the beginning, the earth where we live had no real form. It was kind of like a slimy mud puddle. The wind was blowing, but you would not have been able to see anything because it was dark. Then God said, "Let there be light" and, just like that, there WAS light! Light was created by God and He saw that it was a good thing. Next, He separated the light from the darkness and called the light Day, and the darkness Night. We take Day and Night for granted because it seems to us that it has always been that way. We certainly aren't able to separate light and darkness from each other when we have nothing to put between them! That is the power of God.
Another interesting thing to see here is that the darkness (night) came before the light (day). We will see that this fact is very important in understanding God's timing.
On the second day of creation, God put an expanse between the water on the earth and the water above. He called this expanse Sky. While we really can't know for sure now, it almost sounds like there was another layer of water above the sky at that time. Now we see the 'water above' in the form of clouds that float across the sky. It certainly doesn't seem to make sense to think that water could just sit way up there without falling, but every one of us has seen how long it can rain and how deep the puddles can get. All of that water comes from the sky and we can't really explain how it does it. Once again, that is the power of God!
On the third day, God spoke again. With just His voice, He separated the waters and the dry land. He called the dry land Earth, and the waters He called Seas. As we saw before, God is able to do what we have no power to do. Then, with just His voice, He created all the plants... grass, trees, flowers, all the plants that we can eat and also many that we can't. He even made them with seeds so they could continue to grow new plants. Isn't God amazing!
