What Was God Doing Before He Made the World?

Adalyn (age 8) asked,

“What was God doing before he made the world?”

Great question, Adalyn!

Before God made the world, he was all that existed. We know there was nothing else because the Bible tells us that God created everything. Before he created, there were no animals, humans, or space. There wasn’t even time!

There is so much we can’t understand about God. The author of Ecclesiastes writes, “Then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out” (Ecclesiastes 8:17). In this verse, the author is saying that there are some works of God that we will not understand on this earth.

Since there was no time before God created, there really was no “before” in the way we think about time, but the Bible does say that before God made the world, he was already planning its history and how he would save his people. He loved his children even before he created them (Ephesians 1:4). He knew that Adam and Eve would sin and that they and their descendants would need a Savior, his Son, to die for their sin; see Revelation 13:8 NKJV. Now all who believe in Jesus and put their faith in him can have a right relationship with him (John 3:16).