Genesis 1:3-5

God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” There was evening and there was morning, one day.

When God created, He did it in a way we could never do in that He brought into existence that which never existed. Even though we sometimes use the word “create” to describe a human action, we are really only describing the forming of things out of other things that already exist and we do it with a mind that we were given by a greater mind than ours.

Isn’t it interesting that God made light first? The sun didn’t even exist yet. Not only that, he made the light go on and then go off. Light without the sun may seem strange to us, but from the point of view of systems development it makes sense. When we are first forming automated systems, it is often easier for us to do some things manually at first. As I make something, I may personally work certain parts of the system by hand that I plan to later do automatically with a program. So, at first, the system can depend heavily on direct involvement by the creator until the whole idea is developed.

Here I see a master system developer making the concept of a day while in a day. When I study God’s development patterns, I am frequently amazed. One thing that amazes me this time is how simple and logical it was for Him start this way. He used a day and made it at the same time. He was able to experience the wonder of what was being made Himself, and He knew that it was good. I also recognize the effort that is required to develop names for things when developing a system. As system developers, we also make names for the new things we form. We can always learn to do what we do better by imitating what God does.