Rhythm of Life

I can't remember which book or lecture by Eugene Peterson that I came across when he talked about the rhythm that forms one the main structures of the creation account in Genesis 1. The rhythm goes like this: "Then God said ... And there was evening and there was morning .... " This is repeated for all six days of the creation process. This rhythm gives us a glimpse of how God works. I never quite understood what was the significance of this rhythm until the other day, when I thought about how uneventful, mundane, and even boring rhythm usually is. Nothing seems to happen, and nothing seems to change. We get up, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, eat some more, and go to sleep, and there was evening and there was morning. Indeed a non-reflective life, a life without goal and vision, is unproductive. It is stale, boring, and may eventually die. But a life that is empowered by God, sustained by rhythm, is life changing. One usually don't see big changes, but over time, in retrospect, there are monumental changes. In this fast paced world that we live in, where we expect instantaneous results in everything we do or say, or even think, we need to learn how to be patient and getting into a rhythm where small changes, or even changes we can't see, that will help us foster a hope and vision that will endure and persevere.

BTW, some may argue that in the six days of creation, great things did happen .. earth was formed, oceans were filled, animals, plants, etc were put in place, etc. Surely God wanted instantaneous results too! But that is a literal reading of the six days. The Genesis account, much like many Ancient Near East (ANE) literature, is not a scientific account. It is a "mythical" account following the tradition of literature in those days, that reveals more of an underlying message of God's creation rather than the scientific view that the Western culture adopts in most of its thinking.