In the summer of 2003, I found myself on an overnight ferry going from Belfast, Ireland to Liverpool. Our group had been over seas for a few weeks by this time, and we were exhausted. But before I popped a Dramamine and let the rocking of the giant ferry drop me off to sleep, I stepped outside. It was windy and frigid; the English Channel was a deep gray in an essentially dark surrounding. I stood there for a few minutes listening to the wind hit the water and spray upwards. Then I slept deeply.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. And the Earth was formless and darkness was upon the waters. The Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the deep.” For a minute, step away from controversy over intelligent design, Evolutionary theory, and every philosophy in between. In the Beginning… The Earth, the one on which you are sitting right now, this exact Earth, had no form. There was only a primordial sea. Darkness struck the face of the waters much like the light would strike it at God’s command. His living spirit hovered above the waters. But not just the waters… he hovers over the “surface of the deep.” I see a dark, tumultuous ocean much like that night I was leaving Belfast. Its depth is unfathomable, shrouded in pure mystery and unwilling to yield its secrets.

The Spirit of God hovers over the deep. He fathoms the unfathomably deep water. He is not afraid of the violent surface. God hovers over his creation. The sun had not been born yet, but it will come into existence soon. Waters have not yielded dry land, but it is only a matter of time. God still hovers over the water, taking it in. He knows what it will look like when he finishes, when the sun shines on trees and dances through a waterfall’s spray. But not yet. First, God’s spirit hovers above the water.

By his spirit, God surveys and continues his creative work. He forms our continents, sets the galaxy in motion with the life giving sun. He creates life. Things live and grow. Birds fly, gazelles run, and flowers bloom. Beauty takes pure and physical form, and we get the sense that as the Spirit of God hovers over this great, dark sea, he knows what is coming. He hovers in anticipation.

This powerful Spirit that created and witnessed the beginnings of the Earth, planned what it will be like, smiled when beautiful things grew to be a part of it, and even hovered over it in its crudest, primordial state, also breathes life into every human being in existence and is present even there in your room.