Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, September 7, 2025
by Pr. Matthias Lorimor, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: In a world that seems increasingly chaotic, God’s logical peace and orderly grace is still there.
It’s too easy to look at the world around us as a callous, chaotic, and utterly indifferent mess. Just turn on the news or scroll through social media for ten minutes. Every day we are bombarded with news of unspeakable wars, infuriating politicians, anxiety-inducing economic reports, and stories about how “those people” who aren’t like us are making the world worse. Perhaps in today’s world, Genesis 1 has become one the most counter-cultural scriptures in the bible.
In the first account of creation, God creates through a meticulous, careful, and logical process. It’s clean, as God simply speaks things into existence. It’s simple, as each new element builds on the last. Most important, it’s orderly, as things unfold step-by-step and day-by-day. It all speaks to the ancient Greek idea that creation is ordered by a universal, underlying sense of reason known as the logos; “the Word.” It’s this logical Word that God uses to create as God speaks and it’s this same Word we see again in John 1 that was “with God,” “was God,” and that takes on flesh and steps into creation. And in a society driven by shocking news headlines and talk of culture wars, perhaps the good news these two creation stories remind us of is that the Word of God’s divine reason is still there.
It may not always be easy to see behind all the challenges and drama, but there are still moments in our daily lives when we can catch a glimpse of creation working as God always intended it to. In the ordinary kindness of the co-worker who asks if we need a hand, in the routine peace we feel in a much-needed moment of rest, in the simple joy of watching our children and grandchildren play without a care in the world, and in all the little God-given moments we take for granted each day, there are still so many ways God continues to speak orderly beauty and logical peace into creation. The trick is to listen for the Word.
