I’ve been slowly reading The Orthodox Way by Bishop Kallistos Ware.

I wish I could read the book faster, but I’ve got way too much other reading and writing for school right now.

Any way, I came across this great passage:

“God’s motive in creation is his love. Rather than say that he created the universe out of nothing, we should say that he created it out of his own self, which is love. We should think, not of God the Manufacturer or God the Craftsman, but of God the Lover. Creation is an act not so much of his free will as of his free love… God’s love is in the literal sense of the word, ‘esctatic’ — a love that causes God to go out from himself and to create things other than himself. By voluntary choice God created the world in ‘esctatic’ love, so that there might be besides himself other beings to participate in the life and the love that are his.”

My modernistic mind sometimes forgets that the earth and universe around me aren’t simply the environment for our lives. The world and all it holds flows out of God’s love. No wonder John says that God loves the world so much that he gave his son. Paul unpacks it a bit more when he says in Colossians 1:19-20, “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

All of this brings such new dimension to Romans 8:19 when Paul says, “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.” God created the world in love. He reconciles the world through his son in love. And creation waits for the heirs [sons/daughters] of God to be revealed, fully participating “in the life and love that are his.”

God of Creation, continue to teach me to drink from the spring that is your life and love. And as I’m transformed, may the world around me be transformed as well. Such was the way of Christ in his life. May it be so in mine. Amen.