There are a number of possibilities as
to why Genesis 1 said God created everything in six days.
For starters, some do not believe
"days" means a literal 24 hour period for two reasons:
1. There was no sun when light was created on Day 1
so how was a day measured?
2. Day 6 is very busy. Hard to fit all that activity into a 24-hour
time period.
So "day" is sometimes translated
as the word "time period” which would not limit it to six twenty-four hour
periods. It could be twenty-four seconds
or twenty-four million years.
Maybe God wanted to build association
with a 6-day work week and 1 day of rest.
To communicate the idea of a Sabbath rest on the seventh day, God used
creation as a model for a 6-day work week.
If God is all-powerful (or omnipotent),
why didn't He just say "EVERYTHING" and it was all created? It would not be impossible for God to such a
thing.
God as the creator would know the best
way to create the earth just like a carpenter would know the best way to make a
chair.
A carpenter would allow the glue to dry
and the stain to settle, just like our natural world needed time to develop,
cool and settle. Light had to travel across galaxies. Vegetation needed time to grow, blossom and
multiply. Planets find their orbits.
God made that all happen in a time
frame that was best—whether he pushed the world’s development through on its
own or he allowed it to develop naturally.
By using the six-day structure for
creation, God may also want to teach us concepts such as process and
patience. Rome wasn't built in a day and
neither was the earth. God showed us
through creation that he took his time in a very orderly manner to build the
universe, so we should take our time building our lives, our churches, our businesses
and our careers.
Also, by using the six-day structure
for creation, God wanted us to examine our work week. We work six hard days and then what do we do
on the seventh? God says to give to
him. Don’t strive. Don’t try to make money. Stop working and trust God, thanking him for
providing for you the other six days. We
“give” one day to God to show we trust him, just like we give 10% of our income
to show the same thing.
God is not always portrayed as the God
of the instantaneous. We must not expect
things overnight. We must trust him in
the process.
Things take time and God is in charge
of it all.