"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." Genesis 1 v 1- 2 (NIV)
Everything begins and ends with God - he's eternal. It's a hugely hard concept for us to grasp, something that's without time and an even harder concept for non Christians. But he has existed always, but the heavens and the earth have not existed forever, and they definitely won't last forever.
God created. These two words contradict a lot of what the world thinks. Firstly, it disproves atheism, because there's a God. It disproves Polytheism as there is only one God, not many. It disproves Pantheism which says God and the universe are the same. And more importantly, it disproves scientific theories that the origins of the universe happened by chance.
We aren't told how the earth was actually created but really - does it matter? People can spend their lives proving / disproving "the big bang theory" but in reality, does it matter? Us as Christians KNOW that God created the world, we don't need to fuss about how he did it.
At first, the Earth was uninhabitable, there was nothing there. There seems to be a running theme in commentaries that this was seen as chaos. The Spirit of God - the same we know - hovers over the waters of the earth. When God withdraws his spirit, life ceases. Life is just starting on earth here! It's so exciting, the potential of it all
