God may not be as patient as I thought

I have been on a road trip for two months, going to a number of geologically significant national parks and monuments in the north western US and Canada. I accept the time frames Geology gives for things that have happened here, and for a long time, I have had the idea that God has been very patient, as He set things into motion and kicked off various evolutionary processes, until it was time for Him to jump back in and top it all off by creating Adam. Four billion years is a long time to wait, even if a thousand years is like a day.

But seeing some of the exquisitely balanced phenomena, in Yellowstone, Glacier, Bryce, and more, I have come to a different vision. God carefully set things in motion, not only for the earth, but for all the physical universe, and He watched with great joy as his work of performance art played out - He may have intervened now and then as He still does, being actively, lovingly involved with his creation. But it's not as if He just sat around waiting for the time to be right to make Adam, that is a human-chauvinistic idea. No, I think God had great joy every step of the way, watching as the most basic parameters of this universe worked together to create the vast array of beautiful effects that we are only beginning to discover and appreciate.

Now, it is theologically important, in my opinion, for God to have personally and especially created Adam, a self-portrait set in a larger self-portrait. In that sense Adam could be viewed as the high-point of Creation - but lets not get too proud of ourselves, shall we? The Bible doesn't rule out life on other planets, and besides: Adam screwed up. After four billion years of the beautiful interplay of forces on earth, after thirteen or fourteen billion years of similar interaction in the greater world of the physical universe, imagine His grief and disappointment when sin and unrighteousness entered this world. He has known every galaxy, every planet, every sparrow, every molecule, every photon, every quark, by name. He has seen every event occur.
The vandalizing of this work of art must have seemed like a huge defeat - but not, as it turns out, to God himself. Without sin turning it sour, He would never have had the opportunity to show forth the incredible depths of his loving nature by providing gracious redemption.
So now, having provided it, the tares continue to grow up with the good seed, and the works of redemption go on. That, as Jesus told us, is the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven. The restoration has already been provided, and some time when the Father decides that the harvest time has come, the Creation will groan no more.