Genesis 1 offers us such rich perspectives on creation that we can’t begin to cover them all in one unit. But we’ll tease out the strands that most powerfully inspire kids to celebrate the overwhelming majesty, splendor, and riches of God’s awesome creation. We especially want them to experience their world as a magnificent gift from their gloriously loving Creator. That will prod them

• to praise and give thanks for God’s wonders;
• to place their trust in God to care for them too;
• to enjoy this big, beautiful world;
• to take good care of it.

God created the heavens and the earth. The Hebrew word barah means “to make out of nothing.” Point out how amazing it is that God is able just to speak stuff into being. Point out also that God creates order out of the original “tohu wabohu,” Hebrew words that, taken together, mean something like “all mixed up together in one big terrifying mess” (see Gen. 1:2; the NIV’s “formless and empty” is much too gentle.) Like a potter who first takes a glob of goopy clay and then starts molding it, God shapes the fiercely disordered chaos into a cozy, ordered, life-sustaining habitat for us. In a firmly methodical way, God issues commands that separate out day and night, sky and earth, land and sea.

The ordering process is emphasized through a recurring rhythmic pattern. Each time God

• gives a command, 
• sees what was commanded,
• makes a judgment about this new thing,
• names it,
• and blesses it.

Each of these patterns is put to bed with the same refrain: “There was evening and there was morning—the [first, second, third . . .] day.”

The first great division is the separation of God’s world into night and day. Help your kids see how deeply that division impacts our lives. Daytime is the time when most of us eat, work, play, and enjoy the sunshine. Nighttime is the time when we generally stop working, relax, spend time together, and sleep.

Encourage your kids to see that God made both the day and the night good. They don’t need to fear that God deserts us when it gets dark. The rhythmic sequence of nights and days are themselves a previous gift from our Creator that allows us to pattern our lives according to God’s will. We can all begin and end each day with a prayer of thanks for the gift of what comes next. We can make “Good night, God” a faith-filled declaration as well as a heartfelt wish.