Take a look at Proverbs 8:22-31 — Here we are back in Genesis, back at the world being created, here in Proverbs. Lady Wisdom was there “at the first, before the beginning of the earth.” The world was created to be delightful, to be full of rejoicing (verses 30-31). God is so much more than us: wisdom and justice and love and delight and creativity and peace.
In this retelling, the details are so full of joy. Lady Wisdom was there before the depths, before springs of water, before the mountains had been shaped, before earth and fields and soil, before all. Before the beginning God was full and rich and whole and yet so full that creation must create: “he drew a circle on the face of the deep/he made firm the skies above… he assigned to the sea its limit/like a master worker.” This is an image of God using “hands” and taking matter and creating a world, a universe, like we might create from clay.
And verse 31: “… rejoicing in his inhabited world/and delighting in the human race.”
As horrible as it sometimes seems that humankind is, there is hope. Because the bones, the foundation, the breath of life, were shaped and given with love, by love, for love.
FTGOG 