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In my roles at ���Ĵ�ý, I think about God’s Creation daily. I have been reading the Creation account in Genesis 1 with students for years, but I recently began to take note of some important repetitions in the days of Creation that we read: “Let there be,” “And it was so,” “And there was evening, and there was morning.” However, there is also a phrase that is repeated and then abruptly changed at the end of the chapter. “And God saw that it was good” is repeated several times until, in verse 31, we read, “God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” 

Initially, we might think the human part of Creation made it “very” good. But the Bible does not simply repeat, “and God saw that it was good,” after God created Adam and Eve. Instead, the Bible says that God considered “all” or “everything” He made depending on the translation, and that is what was “very good.” God is both evaluating and pronouncing His Creation as very good. 

I’ve had the honor of teaching General Ecology, an introductory class for several science majors, each fall for the last 16 years. Ecology focuses on the connections between an organism and the physical environment around it, as well as connections between different organisms. As I explain various examples of how God’s Creation is amazingly interconnected, I am impressed again each year by how this rich connectedness profoundly reflects God’s very nature. 

God could have created a disconnected world where various aspects of His Creation exist in isolation and independence from other parts — imagine organisms living in self-contained bubbles without other organisms and reliance on the outside world. But He did not! Instead, God created a world full of connections — full of relationships. Plants and animals were created in relationship with each other and the physical environment around them. Humans were created in relationship with each other and, most importantly, with God. Relationships make up the “very good” of Creation. 

God highly prized these relationships throughout Creation. When they were damaged through the fall, He immediately established a rescue plan to restore what was broken. 

Relationships are still the most important part of our lives and are to be valued as such. Jesus identified the greatest two commandments as “love the Lord” and “love your neighbor” (Matt. 22:37-39). These ought to be our top two priorities as Christians. Can responsibly caring for God’s Creation relate to these two priorities? By all means! We join God in his restorative work as we care for His Creation. 

Jesus is the ultimate restorer of relationships in what He did on the cross, what He is doing in our hearts, and what He will do at His second coming. In John 10:10, Jesus said He came into His Creation for us to have life abundantly. Let us be about restoring relationships with God, each other, and the rest of Creation. Only in Him does the “good” become the “very good!”

Dr. Nate Bosch is the Dean of the School of Science & Engineering and Creighton Brothers Endowed Director of the Lilly Center for Lakes & Streams. Bosch received his doctorate from the University of Michigan in the field of limnology, the study of freshwater lakes. He has more than 20 peer-reviewed publications and has been awarded the Chandler Misner Award twice by the International Association of Great Lakes Research. In his free time, Bosch loves to spend time with his wife and four kids, enjoying water sports on local lakes and restful walks in nature.

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