At the same time, I am actually encouraged by those results because it proves that the case is far from closed and shows that there is room for disagreement and healthy debate within the church regarding this issue. Even in a Bible church that is largely conservative theologically there is wide diversity in perspectives, so this clearly is not a liberal/conservative issue.

I grew up in a largely young earth environment and was consistently taught one side of the debate, which led to my presuming that there really was only one biblical view on this issue, at least for those Christians who consider the Scriptures to be inerrant. Like others in my circle, I was fairly dogmatic about this belief because I didn’t know any different.

So, I was genuinely surprised when I later learned that there are actually several other views held by evangelical Christians who maintain a high view of Scripture and are sincerely conservative in their theology. I eventually came to realize that the only difference between them and those in my tradition was the way that they interpret the same infallible Scripture.

This realization led me to look into the other views and read a host of literature from disparate perspectives, and the net result of that investigation for me is a high regard for the different views and deep respect for those who hold them. I now understand more fully that there are legitimate arguments for different views and that they are held by God-fearing, Bible-believing, highly intelligent Christians.

Admittedly, I still favor a young earth view, but my reasons are more theological and exegetical than they are geologic and scientific. I have read equally compelling arguments for and against a young earth based upon geology, but being a pastor and not a geologist I understandably and hopefully appropriately give more weight to special revelation than to natural.

Given that bias, I let Scripture become the ultimate arbiter of the issue. And, for that reason, I actually do prefer the common understanding of “yom” (day) in the Genesis account, which is the 24-hour day. And, I have found that the theological problem of suffering and death in the world before Adam’s sin though not insurmountable is quite difficult to reconcile with the rest of Scripture.

Nevertheless, I hold my personal leanings loosely knowing that I could be wrong. The truth is that the Scripture is not clearly explicit on this issue and there must be room for charitable disagreement in the church. We ought to permit and even encourage healthy dialogue and investigation to occur within the church and be tolerant of and comfortable with a diversity of views.

That being said, I am really concerned about two things regarding this emotionally charged debate in the church today. First, it bothers me how Christians treat each other while fighting over this issue. Young Earth Creationists accuse Old Earth Creationists of being unbiblical compromisers and Old Earth Creationists return the favor by calling Young Earth Creationists narrow-minded simpletons.

When I first read Hugh Ross’s A Matter of Days, I was stunned to hear how alienated and persecuted he felt by the evangelical church for his old earth views. In fact, he laments for several pages the unmitigated anger that was directed his way by pastors and evangelical leaders when he went public with his arguments.

In the same way, I was equally shocked to learn that Ken Hamm was being panned and ridiculed for his young earth views at Answers in Genesis. It seems many in the old earth community actually mock him and his peers for holding what they deem an outdated and narrow minded perspective.

Having grown up among young earth proponents that I respect, I am equally concerned by the childish panning directed their way as I am by the angry condemning that is returned. As a pastor who values diversity in lesser debates, I really am embarrassed by the lack of charity shown by both sides.

The other thing that bothers me about this issue is that I believe the church is fighting the wrong war. Jesus told us to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” as we live and minister in the midst of wolves, and being wise means that we must know where to draw the battle lines. As Christians, we too often draw lines where they shouldn’t be. And, the age of the earth need not be a battle line in the church.

Being wise as a snake is about knowing where the true war is, and the true battlefront is not whether the earth is young or old but whether the earth is created or not. You see, the real war today is whether God created the world or whether it evolved by blind chance. This means that we are fighting in the wrong place and wasting our energy and resources on the wrong things.

While the church is busy bickering about whether the earth is thousands or millions of years old, the culture is more interested in deciding whether there is any need for a Creator in the first place. In case you haven’t noticed, atheism is growing at unprecedented rates in America and around the world because more people think that God is basically unnecessary.

When we divide our forces and fight on the wrong battlefronts, we are spinning our wheels and wasting precious time in the real war over the creation story. People have forgotten that there is a God who created them and has plans for them because evolutionary naturalism tells them something different.

From a young age, we are taught that we are nothing more than an accident in the grand scheme of unfolding evolutionary events. Our culture believes more every day in blind chance as the parent for all things including us, and we lose more ground each year because we aren’t mounting efforts to show them otherwise.

Instead of fighting with each other about WHEN and HOW God created the earth, we ought to be fighting together for the truth THAT God created the earth and the people on it. The when and how are secondary. What is primary is the fact that there is a Creator who made all things, and that Creator is the God of the Bible.

People today need to hear one common message from the Church, and that message is that there is a Creator who made them, loves them, and has plans for them. They need to see that there is undeniable evidence that our world is carefully designed and personally superintended by an all powerful God, and they need to know that they are not an accident and that people have value, dignity and purpose because God gave it to them.

For this reason, I want to encourage my brothers and sisters in Christ to stop wasting emotional energy and spiritual resources on the when and how of creation and instead start spending it on the “that” of creation. Let’s invest ourselves in one common cause and unite in one shared message that the God of the universe made everything and He made it all for a purpose.

Eric Liddell, the Scottish runner, is famous for once saying “God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.” Apparently, when Liddell competed, He could sense God’s happiness about what he was doing. And yet, the pleasure that he sensed was not so much in the fact that he was able to run fast but rather that he was fulfilling the purpose for which God had created him. In other words, the source of the pleasure for his Maker was in his child being the very man that God had intended him to be. Hence, the divine pleasure was not in watching his child perform but in seeing him fulfill his superintended calling.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to bring God pleasure. Because God is not like us, because His ways and thoughts are so much higher than ours, I’m not sure that God feels “pleasure” in the same way that we do. And, if He does, then I’m fairly sure that He feels it much more profoundly than we ever could. Though we feel pleasure perhaps when we see our children succeed, our sense of satisfaction is tainted by our own ambition and selfishness, whereas God’s pleasure as our Holy Father is probably entirely different. His pleasure is not marred or compromised by anything insincere or impure, so God’s sense of personal pleasure must be not only much deeper than ours but also much more intense. So, when God is pleased, I’m therefore not surprised that His children can not only sense it but also even feel it.

God’s pleasure undoubtedly sends supernatural shock waves through the universe that can be sensed by the spiritually sensitive human hearts of His children, and if they are looking and care to know, they may even feel it. At the same time, I wonder how many of God’s children go about their lives without ever stopping to look up at their Father’s face to see if perhaps He just might be smiling on them. What a sad story for God to be pleased in His child and for the child not to even notice.

Well, I think that I didn’t notice God’s smiles for many years in my life. Although God had probably at times smiled in my direction, I was too busy or too distracted to notice Him. Although I knew that God cared about me and loved me, I didn’t really think about whether He actually liked me. I wonder how many times God was saddened after He took pleasure in me and I failed to take note of it, and I have reflected on how my life might be different had I cared or noticed His joy all of these years. Perhaps you have wondered about these things too or maybe you are just now wondering for the first time.

It was only within the last couple of years that I have begun to look for God’s face to see if there might be a smile on it. And, what I found is that when I looked for signs of His pleasure in my life, I started to really notice that He smiled on me most often when I was engaged in one particular activity. For many years, I have preached God’s Word in various churches, with various groups, and in various places, but it wasn’t until I started preaching every week to the same group of people that I began to sense something that I hadn’t really noticed before.

What I sensed as I prepared and delivered God’s Word week in and week out was an ever increasing inward feeling of God’s satisfaction with me. Although the week to week teaching has sometimes felt tedious and even fruitless at times, I have realized more and more that it is anything but that. What I have been about doing in preaching is not giving talks or speeches to entertain and inspire people but rather living out the purpose for which God has created me. What I started to sense and have even begun to feel in my spirit when I preach is that God is happy when I am teaching. It’s not so much a sense that God is pleased when I teach well but rather than He is pleased that I am fulfilling the purpose for which He has created me. And, knowing that I’ve made God happy makes me happy.

Now, for several years, I didn’t actually apply myself to doing what God had in fact created me to do, and though there was enjoyment and reward in doing other tasks and pursuing other goals, I never felt God’s pleasure in doing those things as I do when I preach God’s Word. And, knowing that now, I would not have spent so much time doing anything other than that which brings my Father the most pleasure because there is no greater joy in this life than in feeling that you are doing the very thing that God put you on this earth to do.

So, what has God put you on this earth to do? It may not be preaching God’s Word but rather competing in sports, making music, creating art, selling insurance, designing buildings, or teaching kindergarten. It really doesn’t matter what it is so much as knowing that you are doing the very thing God has created you to do. The joy and the fulfillment is in sensing God’s pleasure when you are actually doing whatever it is that you do.

At the same time, if you cannot sense God’s pleasure in your heart when you go about your work, then perhaps you are not fulfilling the calling for which you were designed. Even if you enjoy it and are richly rewarded for your tasks, those successes are trivial and vain if they do not bring God’s  pleasure and your awareness of it. Real fulfillment in this life is in doing the very thing that you know brings your God the most joy.

So, what is it that you do that you feel in your heart makes God smile? What is it that you do, and when you do it, you can feel God’s pleasure? If you can’t answer that question, then it means that either you are not doing what God created you to do or you haven’t taken the time to notice that you are.

So, how will you know if God is smiling on you? Quite simply, if God is not smiling on what you are doing, then you will likely feel an unsatisfied restlessness that compels you to always be wondering about what else you should be doing. And yet, if you have that feeling that you are settled in your calling and that this is the way you want to invest the rest of your life, then stop and look up at the Father’s face once in a while because He may just be smiling on you.