Abide: The Portal to Creative Power

In Genesis 1, God invites us to join him in an experience—he invites us to create. For all of us, this can be an easy yes, just as it was for me when my Daddy invited me along for the day. It’s an easy yes because of who’s asking.

Near the end of Genesis 1 we find God’s first ask of humanity. Here he invites us to be fruitful. In doing so God reveals one of humanity’s primary functions on earth—fruitfulness:

Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28)

In Hebrew, the word translated “be fruitful” above is peru and means “be fruitful” in the sense of “bear fruit” or “reproduce.”1 Bear and reproduce are action verbs. Action verbs denote action, whereas being verbs denote qualities. Basically, bearing fruit is something we do; being fruitful is something we are.

Had God said, “Bear fruit” or “Reproduce” using action verbs, he would’ve been giving a finite command, completed and done. Instead, his commands were just a beginning. As a quality, our fruitfulness—our ability to be fruitful—is ongoing.

And fruit, which we commonly refer to as “produce” in the United States, is what we produce or create as a result of our work or actions. When we’re fruitful, we create—and not just in the form of offspring. Our fruitfulness can apply to any activity, including our efforts to share the gospel, build relationships, make tangible things like fabric or electronics, and even rest. Basically, fruitfulness applies to any aspect of living—any aspect of creating our lives.

In Chapter 15 of John’s Gospel, Jesus reveals the key to our fruitfulness: our creativity. Using a vine metaphor or parable, Jesus portrays himself as the vine, God as the vinedresser, and us as the branches. He teaches us that just as branches separated from the vine can’t bear fruit, neither can we bear fruit separate from him. Jesus, like a vine with its branches, is the source of our creative power, our fruitfulness. Abiding in him is the portal to accessing his creative power.

It’s an invitation to connect and create a life that comes with the promise of power.

The Greek word translated “abide” in this passage is meinate, which means to “remain in a place.”² As when God bestowed the quality of fruitfulness on us at creation, this invitation to connect to his creative power is an ongoing activity, not a singular event. When we abide in Jesus and Jesus abides in us, we’ll bear “much fruit.” We’ll be fruitful. We’ll activate our creativity—our ability to create.

John 15 describes a close and continuing relationship. A relationship that, like the vine used to illustrate it, is alive and growing. A relationship that’s vibrant and thriving like this “bears much fruit.” Thus, a close and continuing relationship with Jesus provides the opportunity to maximize our creative power—the opportunity to create an abundant life.

But first we must remain close to the one inviting us. In Genesis 1 and John 15, God invites us to join him in his ongoing creation—to connect with him through Jesus in order to access his creative power to create an abundant life. As we move into the next part of the creation story, we’ll see how remaining close—deeply connected—is crucial to the outcome of our activities. Remaining connected is pivotal to creating a new, abundant life.

Since the Beginning

For many of us who’ve been involved in the church for a while, the concept of “abiding” from the parable of the vine in John 15 is a familiar one. The idea of staying connected to Christ—to God, because Christ the Son is our bridge to God the Father—isn’t new. John’s Gospel is almost two thousand years old, but the creation story reveals that the idea of remaining connected to God has been around since the beginning.

Realizing it was just the beginning wasn’t immediately helpful to me.

Nevertheless, God was inviting me to create a new life.

How would I create my new life? With what? Pondering those questions reminded me of an old children’s song:

With what, dear Liza, with what?
There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza. There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole.

The bucket of my life seemed to have sprung a leak and all my hopes for the future spilled out through that breach. And anything new I put in the bucket after Reggie’s death slid out too.

Like Henry, the other character in that children’s song, I needed someone to tell me what to do. How do you create a new life? How do you begin when you have nothing to build with? Or when every brick you put down crumbles? How do you start over when you’re starting from scratch? What steps should you follow?

The Bible girl in me eventually returned to Scripture. There in Genesis 1:2, right where I paused my deep dive, I found my answer. My answer was in God’s position. He was above it all—hovering. See, it’s right there in the book:

The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:2)

The Spirit of God hovered over all of it—all of the chaos, emptiness, and darkness. The Hebrew words translated “was hovering” and “over” are merakhephet and al. They mean to “circulate” and “above,” respectively.³

God wasn’t agitated or overwhelmed at the sight of the universe’s unformed state. Nor was he stuck or frozen by the task before him. No, our God was freely moving above it all. He was moving in place, circulating above—not swirling aimlessly or moving frantically like a hamster on a wheel.

On the contrary, our God was hovering peacefully, calmly. His movements were light and quick as they prepared his creation for his next creative acts, his commands, which followed. And when God is creating us, when it’s our turn to be formed, again he moves, preparing us and all we need to fulfill our purpose and visions— lining us up so he can look upon us, experience us, be pleased with us, and, in the end, call us good.

I don’t know about you, but discovering that God’s first act in the creation story was hovering gave me pause—and the realization also provided insight into the first step in God’s creative process. So let’s take a beat and rest here for a moment or two.

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Taken from When Your World Ends Chapter 4, “First Stop, Limbo: God’s Creative Process, Step One—Remain Connected” by Dawn Mann Sanders. ©2024 by Dawn Mann Sanders. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com.

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