Planted by Water

I’ve just started reading through a Bible in a Year Scheme. I know it’s a funny time of the year to start it, but we are going to be starting a Bible Tour Blog for our church (and anyone who would like to join us - more info to follow shortly) in January, which will support them in trying to read the Bible through in a year. As I will be writing most of the support material, the idea is that I try to get a month ahead!

Anyway, just in starting from Genesis, I was reminded how God is really into filling things! In the first chapter of the Bible, we read that he filled the land with seed-bearing plants; he fills the sea with fish and other life, and the sky with birds; (and then tells the fish and the birds to increase and fill the oceans and the sky). He filled the land with animals and then he made mankind and commanded them to fill the earth and rule over it (see Gen.1)

It is in the nature of God to fill. God doesn’t like a vacuum. He hates emptiness. As the Creator, his creation teems with life, swarms with living creatures that have the built-in nature to reproduce and keep on filling the earth. God is not a minimalist! He likes to fill his world with life, and colour, and sound and productive activity. He doesn’t get along with stingy and crabby people who always withold what they can give, who stifle life, or who suck it out of people (which is why he hates religion!). He is the opposite to the thief and the murderer, who steal life. It is in his nature to give and to fill. He is the God who fills everything in every way (Eph.1:23), who has given us fullness of life (John 10:10) and is bringing us to fullness of maturity (Eph.4:13). Whoopeee!!