THE HUMAN QUALITIES OF GOD: “God called!”

“AND GOD CALLED . . .”
God called! In Genesis 1, Elohim is doing a lot of what scholars would call human actions (anthropomorphisms). If you really looked, you would see that these are really divine actions. God was doing them before He made us. Then He gave us the ability to do what He could do. Isn’t that beautiful?

God called! That phrase is used 3 times in Genesis 1:

• God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” (v.5)
• God called the vault “sky.” (v. 8)
• God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” (v.10)

“God called” reveals the awesome nature of our God. The Hebrew word is “qara.” It means that God enunciated a specific vocal message. If we were there, we would have heard him speak. He would have said something like:

• “Light, your name is day.”
• “Darkness, your name is Night.”
• “You big open space, your name is sky.”
• “Dry ground, you shall be called land.”
• “Waters, you are seas.”

Look at our God at work! Not doing this for himself … but for us.

• I will give them light so that they will not have to live in the darkness around them.
• I will give them a big, open space like a canopy above them.
• I will give them darkness so they will know it is time to rest.
• I will give them land on which to walk, and seas in which to swim.

But God was doing something else. He was asserting his sovereignty over the thing named!

• “Light, you’re mine!”
• Catch this — “Darkness, I’m the boss of you!”
• “Land, I made you!”
• “Seas, since I’m sovereign over you, I tell you how far to go!”

This is what the psalmist says:
He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name (Psalm 147:4).

He gave this ability — “of calling” to Adam:
[God] brought [the animals] to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

This act was more than just Adam naming them. It was God giving to Adam the authority, along with the responsibility, of being a sovereign over the things that He had created. Wow! He shared that with Adam!

When you name something, you own it!

But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9)

“Called” here is the same Hebrew word “qara.” God expressed sovereignty over the one He named, so He called out to Adam. “Adam, where are you?” He was essentially saying to Adam, “I’m your Lord — sin is not, nor is disobedience, or the serpent, or your own shame.”

“Adam, where are you?”

Oh, that we could hear a loving, benevolent God call out to us when we are disobedient and ashamed and know that the Father’s love is greater than whatever we’re feeling or whatever we have done. If only we would come forth and say, “Abba, I’m here.”

PRAYER: Thank you, Abba, for calling! Thank you for calling to us! Thank you for calling us your children! Be sovereign over us, Father! We give you absolute permission (not as if you needed it) to call to us out of the mire that we find ourselves in…to you! Enunciate a specific vocal message. Call our names! We will come from among the trees, abandon the fig leaves and say, “Yes, Daddy. Here I am because I know that your love is greater than my shame.” Amen.