Once, I had a conversation about creation with a secular humanist. She finally got exasperated. She chuckled and said, “surely you don’t believe in creation in 7 days”. The subtext was: “how could you be that stupid?” This was her “kill shot”. I said, “yes, God can do anything”. But I have struggled with this ever since. It is hard to reconcile the Biblical time line with the geological or cosmic time lines. Many souls are lost to God because of this particular conflict between Genesis and science. This is tragic. And it all comes down to the definition of “day”.

This morning I was sitting in a hot tub in Arizona …….at 4 am. The sky was dark and clear. The stars were amazing. I saw the milky way, several satellites, and a few meteors. Then I saw something I had never seen before, a large meteor. It was low on the horizon, unusual. It was very bright, unusual. It lasted a long time, unusual. Then it split into 2 meteorites, which is very unusual…….something I have never seen before. I took this as an omen……..you may call it a coincidence. To me, this said, “Pay attention…….important information is coming”.

And then the question about days came to mind. What follows is speculation on my part.

Genesis tells of God creating everything in six days. But what is a day? We assume that this means a 24 hour day on earth……the time it takes for one rotation of our planet. At least that is how I have always interptered it…….. until this morning. But in God’s universe there are trillions upon trillions of galaxies, stars, and planets. Each of them has a different rotation. Each of them has a day that is different from an “Earth day”.

Length of a day in earth hours/days/months/years:

 Jupiter day         10 earth hours

 Our moon day         1 earth month

 Venus day            1 earth year

 Milky Way day.     225 million earth years

So, how long a “creation day” is…..in “Earth days”….. depends entirely on your point of reference. It seems a bit presumptuous to assume that God uses the same reference point that we do. God was dealing with his entire creation. He could choose any day that he wanted. There is no Biblical reason to believe that he chose earth to define his creation day. If God chose a point of reference with a day of a few hundred million earth years, then everything changes. Suddenly, the Biblical time line agrees with the scientific time line. This also reconciles the Biblical time line with the fossil record and the geological strata of earth.

Suddenly, creation in six days is no longer a “kill shot”. Suddenly, observed scientific fact fits with the narrative in Genesis.

Something to consider, the next time a secular humanist laughs at you………for believing God.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Genesis 1: 1-5, ESV,

God describing the first day of creation…….Notice that God made the first “creation day” before he made the earth……..before the first “earth day” even existed. I am not sure what reference point God used to define his “creation day”. But, it seems unlikely that he used an earth that he had not yet created.