“Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. As people migrated from the east, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.They said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.’ And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. The Lord said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. Nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.’ So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.” Genesis 11:1-9
From the beginning, what God created was very good, the perfect setting in purity and substance and beauty for man to thrive. Once sin entered to spoil creation and infect the human heart, beginnings were corrupted. Motivations turned away from God and inward to self, tainted by shame, insecurity, greed, godless ambition. Even after the Lord God renewed the earth after the flood, as the population swelled and spread, man seized that fresh start to make his own mark. All that was meant to fulfill and bring God glory was manipulated toward man’s inflated status and glory, and God would not have it. He divinely disrupted the identity and control that had become their utmost priority.
Thoughts become intentions become words that dictate actions that shape what we are and do. The Lord wants us to care about those beginnings from which character and habit and life direction flow. If He as First Cause is also First End, our course will be set to fulfill our purpose and honor Him. But if, as the world presses us to do, we set our agenda with self-care and personal fulfillment at the fore, satisfaction and joy will be elusive. How would we define our beginning, our aim each morning, our chief end for our day and days?
What aspect of our beginnings need greater inspection or correction? Are my desires and plans aligned with the truth and principles of God’s word? How can they be brought so? Do my impulses thrum with holy, or selfish, desire? Where have ambition or greed overtaken allegiance to the Lord and His people? How can I adjust my morning disciplines to ensure the Lord takes the helm over the start of my days and sets them in His direction?
“Take my life and let it be
consecrated, Lord, to thee.
Take my moments and my days;
let them flow in endless praise.
Take my will and make it thine;
it shall be no longer mine.
Take myself, and I will be
ever, only, all for thee.” ~Frances Ridley Havergal (1874)
Lord purify my every beginning to fuel and fulfill Your glorious purposes.
As the rain and snow 