Origin Story

“Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.’” (Genesis 1:26, NLT)

“You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” (Psalm 139:16, NLT)

“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5, NLT)

“Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.” (Ephesians 1:4, NLT)

“Taking care of this planet? Too much work,” the pagan gods grumbled. Why should we have to do it? It’s overwhelming. It’s exhausting. It’s a hassle. It’s beneath us. We work day and night!”

The gods whined and bickered among themselves until someone proposed a solution.

“We can solve this. We’re powerful, aren’t we? Let us create lesser beings who are beholden to us—we’ll call them ‘humans.’ They can take on the burden and do all the work so we don’t have to.”

Over the centuries, another problem arose. Now there were too many humans. The world had become overcrowded and—most annoyingly to the gods—too noisy. The agitated gods came to loathe humanity for the constant distraction they caused.

“Do we really have to listen to all this?” they exclaimed. “These mortals are the absolute worst. We can’t sleep through all this racket. It’s awful.” Then they had an idea. “We can control the weather, so let’s cause their crops to fail. Then they’ll starve and we’ll be rid of these pests!”

According to an ancient Mesopotamian myth called Atrahasis, this was how humanity came to be. The Mesopotamians were not the only ancient pagans who envisioned humanity as a nuisance. The ancient myths of Greece reinforce this idea. In paganism, the gods are mainly focused on their own plans and powers, and humanity is not much more than a footnote in their story, a curiosity to be obsessed over or a pest to be ignored.

Though you and I may not be ancient pagans, we can – if we’re not careful – find ourselves assuming that God also thinks of us in this way. This leads to fear and a deep sense of insecurity about our place in the world and the role we play in our own life stories. We will question our worth, which pulls our lives beneath the surface of anxious waters.

But the freeing truth is that humanity is the pinnacle of everything God created, and we—individually and collectively—are the object of God’s deepest affection. It is striking how different the Biblical creation narrative is from the pagan myths. God didn’t create humanity out of exasperation, but out of joy. He created us as the finishing touch of his work in the universe. And God crafted each of us, individually and lovingly, as the master architect of our lives.

But he didn’t stop there. He didn’t just make us. God values us so much that he also put us right at the center of his good plans, which he had had in mind from eternity past.

Important isn’t a big enough word for how God feels about us. There’s nothing he made that matters more to him than us, and our value is proven by the fact that he gave his life on the cross to rescue us.

As you now turn to the Bible to discover the truth about humanity’s origins, reflect on these questions:

• Have you ever felt like a nuisance to God? What circumstances prompted those feelings?
• Think of the people who love you the most. How does it make you feel to know that God loves you far more than they do?