I just took my dog for a walk. I had written a draft of this post and needed to pray and meditate before coming back and finishing it. I took her with me thinking it would be good for her, and me. But she is not a well trained dog. I realize this is my fault. I am a first time dog owner and have not trained her, or been consistent in my dealings with her. Nevertheless, it was an unpleasant walk, not prayerful or meditative at all. She only thinks about what is under her nose at the moment. She runs full tilt, pulling me along behind her until something suddenly catches her nose and then she stops short and either causes me to trip over her, or lets so much slack in the leash that she gets herself tangled in it. When you walk her, it’s best not to have any personal agenda. It’s best to just focus on her, and watch her. That too is unpleasant though, because she sticks her nose in every manner of poo, and rolls in every dead thing. I don’t know why she wants to smell like something that died. To her it is cologne, I suppose.

Not unlike how God does things, this walk is a perfect segue into this post! Tohu wa Bohu is the transliteration of a Hebrew phrase.  It is translated as “formless and void.” It is used twice as a complete phrase in the Bible. In Genesis 1:2 it is the state of the world just before the Lord began to hover over the waters. Jeremiah 4:23, is a lament because it is the place we are headed back to if God’s wrath is not abated. Yet it is the Lord Himself who is lamenting and delaying in sending judgment. And, it is His promise that we will not go all the way back to the beginning. He will not let us be completely undone. He will take us almost all the way back to the beginning, and start again.

I’ve read the creation story many times, and taught it to children with colorful construction paper booklets for the 6 days of creation, but in my mind the story begins with Adam and Eve and the garden. That is where I enter the story, as if the story starts when I am born, because I am the central character of the story, but for God the beginning was not the garden but Tohu wa bohu.

It was in this formless void where darkness covered the deep, that God’s Spirit began to hover over the waters.  Some of the nuance of the Hebrew is lost in the English translation. Formless and void is the image of a wild wasteland, a barren uninhabitable place, and the darkness didn’t cover a calm placid sea. It covered a chaotic abyss. And the word “hover” is a gentle nurturing word. Like someone raising a child or gentling a colt. God labored to give us this world. He tamed it, and trained it for us. With God all things are possible, so it’s easy to dismiss His labor, and our ruination of it. But the Earth is His, He made it from tohu wa bohu.

The Old Testament tells the story of Israel’s two temples. The first one in Solomon’s day was resplendent and practically handed to them. David had gathered all that was needed. God gave Solomon peace on all sides and wealth beyond measure and most of the labor was done by slaves or hired men from neighboring peoples. But just like Adam and Eve, they couldn’t hold paradise. They let it slip through their fingers.

The second temple in Nehemiah’s day, was less spectacular in outward appearance, but dearly won. The people came back from a place of waste and wilderness and co-labored with God for a sacred space that they could inhabit together. “Greater will be the glory of this temple than the former!” True. It is the one Our Jesus walked and taught from.

Maybe we have to go back to the true beginning in order to appreciate the Garden. We threw away the garden for the desire to be “like God, knowing good and evil,” that is, knowing what He knows. Since leaving the garden, we’ve spent a lot of time and energy trying to build our own garden. Our own version of safety and glory and comfort and every good thing, but for all our running to and fro, sticking our nose in one mess after another, and jumping headlong into something only to find it’s another dead thing, we haven’t gotten any closer to taming the chaos.

It occurs to me that the first thing that Jesus did after His baptism was let the Spirit lead Him into the wilderness.  Interestingly, while they were there, they didn’t tame the land. They tamed the man.

Later in His ministry Jesus invites Peter to walk with Him on the water. First the Man learns self-control in the wild waste, then He hovers over the deep abyss and gentles a violent colt.

The real loss in Genesis 3 is not that we were banned from the garden, but that we let the chaos back in. We are the adamah, the land, and we let ourselves become formless and void,  frustrated in our pursuits, always moving but never able to find what we truly want.

But all is not lost!  God has been reaching out His hand and saying “Come! Walk on the Water with Me!” If you want to know what I know, then come, take a walk with Me and get to know me. I will help you tame the Tohu wa Bohu inside you. With Me all things are possible!”