2026

If you come over to my house and check out my closet, you’ll find two or three brand
new shirts I haven’t worn yet. I got them for Christmas. I’m not even sure Ivetaken the
tags of them yet. New shirts, sweaters, a new pocket knife. I got a lot of new stuff this
year. But my new shirts aren’t what you’d call ‘originals.’ They’re more like, ‘off-the-
rack’ shirts. I don’t personally identify with original creations when it comes to my
wardrobe.

Of course, our God is A God of Infinite Creativity. No two strands of DNA are identical.
Every fingerprint on every hand that has ever been is totally unique. No two of the
trillions of stars in our universe (or any other universe, for that matter,) is replicated. No
two leaves on any two trees in this world are the same. No grain of sand on any shore is
identical to any other grain of sand on any other shore. Every grain of sand is you might
say, ‘original.’

When God wrote the opening sentence of His first and only book, he was not at a loss
for words. He could easily have said, “Once upon a time,” or something like that, since
that’s how a lot of other famous writers started their books. Except that there was no
‘time’ to be “once upon” when God began His story. He hadn’t spoken time into
existence yet. And so, he chose to begin …“In the beginning:” In the beginning, —when
God created the heavens and the earth— He said the earth was formless and empty of
anything at all. There, in the midst of that dark and formless place, God ‘did’ something
about the darkness. He said, ‘Let there be light,’ and because He said it, just like that,
there was ‘light.’ I don’t know exactly how light showed up. It just came into being
because God said, “Let there be … and there was.”

The God of Infinite Creativity is not used to repeating Himself. When He said, “Let there
be light, there was light. He didn’t have to say it twice. But that’s not to say He would
never say, “In the beginning …” again. Later in His book, in John’s gospel, God
repeated himself. He said, “In the beginning” again.

He didn’t need to say “Let there
be light,” again, like he did the first time. No. Instead, He spoke into existence another
‘beginning, — a ‘new’ beginning. “In the beginning was the WORD,” he said in the book
… and the WORD became Flesh and dwelt among us. And in that Flesh was life. And
that Life was the Light of Men.” God did more than just say, “Let there be light.” God’s
Son BECAME the very Light for men to find their way through life’s darkness … back to
God of All Creation. Just as surely as God spoke light into existence in that ‘first’
beginning in His book … His love became the Light of Men in the person and work of
Jesus.

Everyone knows that a watermark is a faint imprint on a piece of paper. If you want to
see it, you need to hold it up to the light. I’m determined to make this coming new year a
Watermark year; how about you? Holding my everyday life up to the Light of the World
so others can see Him in me.