Now that our youngest daughter has gone off to college and left my wife and me as (mostly) empty-nesters, I sometimes wonder whether we provided our daughters with the parenting they will need to be spiritually healthy as young adults. I suppose most Christian parents engage in this thought process at some point. And, of course, like most parents, I look back and think of a thousand things I would do differently if I could go back in time given what I now know.

The opening passage of Scripture gives us our first glimpse into the nature of God – He created. In a most spectacular way, He spoke, and the universe – earth, sky, plants, creatures, man, and woman came into being out of nothing. In The Magician’s Nephew, that great Narnian myth that illustrates Genesis 1-3 by way of a different world, C.S. Lewis imagined what this might have looked like and gave Aslan the Creator a lilting song that became Narnian matter as it left his mouth. Trees, grass, rivers, stars, animals and other creatures – all the beauty and greatness that the world contained – came into being because Aslan willed them to do so.