The Bible is crammed full of the record of God reaching down to us. When starting this article, I first copied in the bare minimum of snippets from major verses that make that point. I was up to over 400 words 1, and none of them my own! That risks violating copyright rules by having the entire article consist of quotes. I had to trim them down, but I will put in numerous references so you can read them for yourself.
What is it that God starts?
There is a problem-solving technique in the business world called the “5 Whys“. It involves looking at the current problem, and asking “Why did this happen?” Whatever the answer is, ask “OK, then why did that happen?” Keep going backwards through the chain of cause-and-effect events until you arrive at the point that started everything in motion. (In practice, this sounds kind of like a persistent toddler: “But WHY, Mommy?” 😁)
We can use this technique to examine, not a problem, but the good things that have occurred between God and humanity. When we do so, the ultimate answer, the starting point, is always God. He is the Root Cause, the initiator of everything positive about our interactions with Him.
Here are some of the initiatives that God has taken.
God initiated creation.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Before God said “Let there be light“, light didn’t exist. Before He said “Let there be…” the heavens, or dry land, or vegetation, or sun/moon/stars, or sea creatures and birds, or land creatures, or human beings … those things were not there.
See Genesis 1.
God initiates conversations.
I looked for the phrase “The Lord came…” 2 or “The Lord said” 3. I found the former 126 times (125 of them in the Old Testament), and the latter 232 times (217 in the Old Testament). It’s not 100%, and I didn’t dig deep into every single reference (sorry!), but the vast majority of those times God was the first to speak. Only occasionally is He replying to something begun by a human; He is almost always the one beginning the exchange.
See 1 Samuel 3:10, Jonah 1:1-2, Isaiah 6:8, Jeremiah 1:4-5, Ezekiel 2:3.
God initiated the covenants.
As His plan moved forward, at each point God chose a man to implement the next step. From Noah, to Abraham — and then his son Isaac, grandson Jacob, and great-grandson Joseph — to Moses and Joshua, to Saul, David and Solomon: None of them went to God asking for the job. Rather, each received a commission and a commitment that began with God.
God was never reacting to them. He was always the One starting the action.
God initiates the search.
In the garden after they sinned, Adam and Eve did not go looking for God. They didn’t try to apologize, promise never to do it again, or in any way restore the relationship. Instead, God went looking for them. They hid, and then made excuses.
Millennia later, Jesus was still looking. He said that He had “come to seek and to save that which was lost“, and told parables to illustrate God’s search for His lost creatures.
See Genesis 3:8-13, Luke 19:10, Luke 15, Matthew 18:12-14.
God initiated salvation.
As soon as salvation proved to be necessary, God promised that it was on its way. In a contest between the “seed of the woman” vs. the “seed of the serpent”, a Champion would win on humanity’s behalf.
Jesus was sent into the world by the Father with the task of being that Champion. And He did so not because we asked, but even while we were still too alienated to even think of asking.
God initiates the relationship.
We wouldn’t know about any of the above if God had not chosen to reveal it to us by inspiring the Biblical writers. We wouldn’t have any impulse to come to Him, or even to look for Him, if He were not drawing us toward Him. We wouldn’t be aware of our sin or able to repent from it if the Spirit was not acting in our lives.
See Psalm 98:2, Luke 24:25-27, John 6:44, John 16:7-13, Romans 1:16-17, 1 Corinthians 2:10-13.
Now that He has started something, what will we do with it?
Every step of the way, from before we are born until the moment we face Him in eternity, He is reaching out to us. Then He is making it possible for us to reach back toward Him, and enjoy the destiny that He has planned.
But for what He began, God gives us the choice over how it ends. Even now, He knocks on the door of our hearts, waiting for us to choose to let Him in. Which ending will you and I write to our story?
Always remembering: We can only love Him because He first loved us.
See Revelation 3:20, 1 John 4:19.
Note: A similar article on this site is “Alpha and Omega“.