In the Creation narrative found in Genesis 1: 1-2, we read, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.” The story of Creation presents eternal truths about God and about the nature of and the powerful significance that man and woman are created by the breath of God and made in His image and likeness. The first 11 chapters of Genesis reveal the truths behind the Covenant that God made with humanity, His creation, and should not be read in a literalistic way. The truth in the opening statement of the Old Testament is this: God is eternal and He was there before time and space. He who made time, transcends all physics, space and time, and all time is eternally present for God. Second, God is omnipotent. Everything that exists originates from God and with God. In his Word he brought forth life without any pre-existing materials. Finally, God alone is the Creator, and has authority over all creation. The universe was created with impeccable design and the Lord God is found in the details, and because God our Father is all good, everything He creates is good (CCC 268, 279-280, 290-295). The world was created in a systematic and orderly fashion, through the eternal wisdom of God, and everything from the smallest of mustard seeds to the majestic mountains was created with great thought into its design.

The created world gives glory to God, and the human being is the pinnacle of creation, since man and woman have been created to enjoy a personal relationship with God (CCC 295-299, 309-310, 2402). However, humanity tends to forget that we are but mere creations of God our Maker, and trying to apply a comprehension of God with our finite intellectual logic and capacity, tend to limit the workings of God.

The ministry of Jesus gives important clues to the fact that God transcends the space-time continuum and the natural logic of things, and has authority over all things. For example in Matthew 8: 23-27, we read of the encounter of Jesus in a boat with his disciples, and a storm brews. The disciples cry out, “Save us, Lord, we are perishing.” and Jesus rebukes the wind and the storm, causing a “great calm” to settle on the previously stormy sea. In the breaking of bread to feed the multitudes seen for example in Mark 8: 1-10, the miracle of the multiplication of loaves defies human logic. How is it that 7 loaves of bread can feed 4000 people? Yet everyone ate to their fill and there were 7 baskets of bread left over. A classic example of how Jesus does not even need to be in the same physical space as someone else to heal that person, is found in the account of the Centurion and his slave in Luke 7: 1-10: Jesus was still some distance away from the house of the Centurion, when the Centurion sent word to Him, not to trouble Himself. Jesus saw the faith of the Centurion, “and when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave well.”

As John’s Gospels states, “There are also many other things which Jesus did; were everyone of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25)

We have so many examples of how the Lord God does things and miracles which are beyond the boundaries of the wildest human imaginings, as clearly stated in the words of the angel visiting Mary, “For with God, nothing is impossible.” (Luke 1:37) Yet at the same time, our human perceptions tend to limit God and His works. In Mark 6: 1-6, Christ was rejected by his townsmen. The people of his province knew Him as a resident whom they were familiar with, and as a carpenter by trade. They through their own prejudices, were unable to accept that Jesus was a teacher and a rabbi, much less the Messiah, and “Jesus could do no mighty work there, except that he laid hands upon a few sick people and healed them. And he marvelled because of their unbelief.”

Perhaps there is a mountain in our lives that seems immovable. Are we giving the mountain to the Lord and asking Him to make a way on His terms, rather than insisting that the Lord work according to our expectations and our terms? May the disciples’ prayer be our own, “Lord increase my faith, help my unbelief!”