In The Beginning, God

Transcript

Hello, my friend… what a joy to begin this year with you. This is By God's Call — day 1, In The Beginning, God.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1, verse 1.

This is the very first sentence of the entire Bible. And it is no small thing that Scripture chooses to open this way. Before any commandment, before any promise, before a single person's name appears in the story, it begins with this: God created.

Notice carefully: it doesn't say "in the beginning there was chaos" or "in the beginning matter existed." It says "in the beginning, God." He didn't arrive later. He didn't step into a story already in motion, trying to make sense of it. He is the starting point of everything that exists — including the year you are stepping into right now.

In Hebrew, the verb used here is "bara" — to create. And that word has a rare feature: throughout the entire Bible, this specific verb only ever takes God as its subject. No human being "bara's" anything. Only God does this — bringing something into existence from where there was absolutely nothing. This is not renovation. It is not rearranging what already existed. It is genuine creation, out of the void.

And look at the scope of the phrase: the heavens and the earth. That is a way of saying everything — what is above and what is below, the visible and the invisible, the near and the distant. Nothing was left out. No corner of the universe escaped His authorship.

I want you to pause for a second and think: if God made the heavens and the earth out of nothing, what can He not do with the emptiness you're carrying today? Maybe you're starting this year tired. Maybe with no plan at all, no clarity, feeling like you have nothing left to offer. That does not frighten God. He specializes in starting from zero. He is the God of "in the beginning."

And there is one more thing this verse teaches: order matters. Before anything else happens in your year — before the goals, before the plans, before the resolutions — God wants to be first. Not the advisor you call when the plan falls apart. The starting point.

So today, on the first day of this year, I want to invite you to do one simple thing that will mark everything that follows: before you write any list of goals, before you open your planner, take a piece of paper and write this phrase: "In the beginning, God." Then pray, out loud, asking Him to be first in every area of your life this year — in work, in family, in finances, in health, in everything.

Because a year that begins with God in the beginning is already a well-begun year, no matter what comes after.

Stay close to God. Pray — then act. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.