THE BEAT e121 And He Saw That It Was Good

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.

Season 2 Episode 121

THE BEAT | And He Saw That It Was Good 

Quick Take 

Hey human, in this episode we talk about the origin of creativity, and the Master Creator. Consider a God who is wondrous, innovative and relational. And powerful inspiration direct from God’s nature for our witness. I’ll see you inside e121. Thanks for listening.

How is God pulling you closer to Him today?

I’m Kathryn Bise, your host. 

I am obsessed with something right now. Reading from Genesis through Revelation in two months. I did this last year (2024) and it changed my spiritual retina. No lie. Two months of being in the Israeli entourage messed with the DNA of my soul. My goal was to become immersed in God’s story, so much so I forgot about wanting anything but to follow His story.

Good bye Bible-in-a-year, and scripture-hopping. I found that 20+ pages per reading made that happen. When I finished Revelation, the final verse, I was crying, feet propped on the baseboard of our upstairs bedroom overlooking Kitty Hawk Bay. God’s story. Spiritual cinema. Or maybe a spiritual spa immersed in awe of who He is.

I am on the same page this year.

I packed light again, with the same Bible timeline (running parallel) to World History and Middle East History. And the same then-and-now map of God’s earthly terrain, a canvas of mountainous strongholds and blowing sand. I have a new, more expansive middle eastern music playlist. And one other resource, thank you Kristi McLelland, author of Rediscovering Israel. She organized it chronologically so I am reading chapters as foreground to my scripture reading. But that’s it. I have officially “paused” my obsession with stopping every line to look up words. I do stop at spiritual “rest areas” to straighten out something in my mind, if I am super confused. Last year it was when I hit the Kings era. I did so well with what came before, up to the judges. Then I had to zoom out to understand all the kings, how many good, how many bad. Right? So many kings…

So one other new thing: while I took some notes last year, complied some additional maps to sort through my brain confusion, outlined a few things, tagged some ideas for my podcast, but my goal was to stay engaged in the story. I’ll repeat that only as needed, but this year I am also sharing my reactions as I go, journaling thru the power of God in His story.

For the most part unedited, and for sure, this. No rewriting. An A Capella reading, of sorts. And an “unplugged cadence” to when I share but I am committed to keeping the journal flow going. And sending a few narrative flares as to where I am in all this.

A question of three words drive this experience for me. What happened God?

Followed by a question of four words: Who are you, God?

If for some reason, you read this and think, “hey, I need a good drenching of the soul” will you let me know if you join in with your own Bible read-thru? Send me a quick email at deeperwater@kathrynbise.com

And new this year, I wanted to post my journaling in a community of those who love sharing their creative work in process, a community that is ad-free, with less commercial noise, less, well, I would characterize it as less seeking after “highlight reel” perfection. So you can find my journaling over the next two months on Substack under the title of Immerse in His Word 2025.

Reading through God’s story in a short time period is no small undertaking, and I look forward to the fruit it will bear for Faith to Witness 99. How God will strengthen my witness and how I will share it with you.

I had a slow, interrupted start this year. My daily life is different in most ways, new commitments, projects, people, and God had to work overtime to navigate my distractions and bring me to Him. It’s so worth it. I feel so “found” when I am doing this, when I am doing this read-thru, I am the most at peace, the most assured, like coming in from a long, hard day and burrowing in a spiritual blanket of His sovereign Will.

There is no place I would rather be. Other than eternally at His feet in His Kingdom.

Today I just can’t stop myself from sharing the first journal entry, rather returning to it and sussing out what it taught my Spirit and putting that into words. Putting that into my witness.

Genesis goes slower because it is so foundational, like a 50-page premise to what God’s story is all about. And crazy thing. God does not bury the lead. His story starts with creating the world.

What happened God? Tell me how it started for humanity.

And God Saw That It Was Good

Genesis 1

The Beginning

 

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

 

I knew going into God’s story that He created the world.

But I still can’t even picture what it means to create the heavens and the earth yet that’s the first sentence of the Bible. Pretty scary God entrance, how the earth was formless and empty and darkness was over the surface of the deep. That darkness makes it deeper, I think. Enter “the spirit of God” hovering over the waters. The original spiritual link. We hover now in our techy world, but not like this, not like God.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

 

6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

Now THIS is how creating is done. When He created light I started to feel a little less scared, and I am pretty sure that was deliberate on His divine and holy part. That he created a VAULT jumped out at me. I’m sure that’s a word packed with Hebraic meaning but I did not stop to look it up. But I wil return to it.

9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

And here, the beauty of seeing for the first time, God’s quick assessment of the need for management of living things. He spared no goodness, indeed.

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

 

27 So God created mankind in his own image,

    in the image of God he created them;

    male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

 

29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

And verse 31.

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

God saw that it was good six times, over six days. As God worked through each day, creating light, separating the waters, creating vegetation, and back to the light, gifting us a sunrise and sunset for each day, creating all libing things, and man in His image, he does this:

He stands back. “And God saw that it was good.”

A God Who is Wondrous. Accountable. Relational.

I am seeing this entire opening scene unfolding in a new way—God as the Master Creator and that how we enter His story is illuminated by the glory of His creative process. How does a God who is infinitely perfect and knows that no matter what he is doing is perfect, then step back and say that it is good?

I am convicted in three ways:

1. God is wondrous, because wonder inspires innovation. He has put the innovation gene in us, that what we experience when we do something and then the goodness of it rests upon us and we say this really works (like a powerful, simple sentence that blooms for the reader). Like saying the right words to someone needing comfort. Like solving a silly little earth problem, a clogged sink, and by doing so “gifting a good day” back to cook, the mother, the cleaner, the, the, the.

2. God is accountable. He is accountable to what He creates, what He promises, what He delivers in the form of consequences. When we say God is faithful, being accountable to creating us in His image is surely part of His inspiration.

3. God is relational.Better, God is the King of context. God creates the connections to His creations.  The water to sky, the sky to light, the plants to man and all living things. Connection between subordinates and authority. Because we are made in His image. Then God gets to making man in His image and likeness with primary rule over the fish in the sea (those “teeming” fish), and everything else. So He created all of the plants, all of the animals and He realized (not the right word for an omniscient God), He realized that as living things they would continue to evolve and that world of evolving would need a sense of order and communal behavior.

Step Back More, Kathryn

I am hearing this:  Step back more, Kathryn. And see that what God has done is good. In my life. The daily power moves God makes on my behalf. The unwavering commitment He makes with sustaining my every breath.

I am hearing this: Look for the good. Draw from His nature. Innovate, be accountable, and connect goodness to goodness in His glory. This, from the first two pages of God’s story.

When God made Adam He breathed the breath of life into Adam’s nostrils. Oh yeah, the ultimate transcendence, the same breath that spoke an entire world into existence. And now humanity.

When God made me, He saw that it was good. You too, human. He breathed the breath of life into my nostrils. I am drawing my breath from His nature. So are you, human.

I have known this story since I was a small child. But not like this. That I, we, draw our breath from His nature, and we can witness His breath in our lives, and connect the one on our path to the Breath of Life. God will sustain our witness in the life of the one we connect to. He alone will sustain it.

We just need to do the finding.