snow fall and flood

i woke up this morning to more snow.
last year this was the most exciting thing i'd seen but even since being back we've had so much of it that it's beautiful, but less inviting.
i also started a bible reading plan today - one of those bible in a year things - but it's January 13th, so i already have some catching up to do.
i read Genesis 1-9 and i saw the flow of those events so much clearer than i have before.

as i read the creation account i thought about Aslan singing Narnia into being and instead of it being slow and specific categories and days the words all ran into each other and i realised that God made something out of nothing and light into darkness and pushed back the sea and filled it up with billions of creatures and then threw birds into the sky and animals on the land and plants and trees and seeds and then made man to be in charge. it's all such an amazing story, with this beautiful garden that man's in charge of, but God's the one who planted it.
then when you hit chapter three the things that happen are unbelievable, the lies the devil tells, how quickly they give in and then man and woman are on the run, naked and scared and hiding from God.
Adam and Eve's kids who are meant to be serpent crushers go out into the field and one kills the other. then you've got a list of all the people after Adam who all died. and then he died. and then he died. and then he died. and then he died. and God's grieved because every inclination of the thoughts of man's heart is only evil all the time. and it feels like just a moment ago God was working to place the great lights in the sky to govern the day and the night. now look where we are.

God sends a flood which is the second scariest thing in the bible after hell - because it's a shadow of hell.

and then when it's all over in 9:12 God makes a covenant with Noah even though in 8:21, (after the flood, after the destruction of everything) He has recognised that nothing has changed and He says "every inclination of man's heart is evil from childhood". [is; present tense]

it's this tip of the iceberg stuff. it's these early early stages of restoration where in the space of 6 chapters the world has been created and destroyed and God's taking the first move to put the pieces back together. except this time it's not the world He first made that was good in every way, but when God now surveys the planet His judgment is that it is bad.
and here it is - He binds Himself to it with a covenant anyway.

i don't have any words to say how amazing that is. that's how much my God loves. that's His judgment and His grace.