Reluctant Demon Read Online Free

time we really looked at Earth. It was beautiful. The blue and green oceans were teeming with life we had never imagined.
    The seas alone could have been a universe unto themselves. There in the depths of the waters were caverns so massive that they could have swallowed up any canyon on the surface of Earth. The mountain ranges deep beneath the surface dwarfed the magnificent ranges that spiraled above the land itself.
    And let me tell you about the fish. Keep in mind that none of us had seen one before. To be sure, Adonai made many other life forms far more complex and interesting to look at. None of us truly appreciated the complicated engineering required to make a working model from fins, scales, and gills. He made it look simple, so naturally, we thought it was.
    As far as I was concerned, this displayed an aspect of Adonai's character that defied understanding. He made thousands of them. Big, little, beautiful, funny looking, ferocious looking—every kind of fish you might imagine was there in the pristine waters of Earth. But that wasn't what fascinated me as much as the tiny ones that lived near the ocean's floor.
    I couldn't believe the detail that went into making these little bitty creatures. No bigger than two or three inches at most, they lived in the coldest depths of the water, where humans would never go. Miniature works of art, painted with iridescent colors of chartreuse, aqua, green, blue, and yellow, and many of them with funny little headdresses that looked like hats made of fine feathers. Now here's why I marveled at these particular fish: W h o was going to see them? W h o would know they were there?
    Nothing that lived above the waters could have descended to those depths. Not for eons could that happen, and then only in specialized craft much like what would eventually penetrate outer space. What was the point of putting so much creativity and beauty into something that no one would ever see?
    Then I figured it out. He created them for Himself.
    He delighted in them whether any other living thing knew about the fish or not. He made them for His own pleasure.
    Adonai liked the idea of fish so much that He did something I have rarely seen either He or His Father do. For the sake of the fish, He would defy one of the natural laws He had set in place to govern this new world. As nearly as I could tell, He did it solely to protect His fish.
    Simply stated, here is how this law works: objects denser than water will sink in water. Ice is denser than water and should sink, but it does not. It floats.
    Why? He must have been thinking about the parts of Earth where the waters would be so cold they turned to ice. Instead of sinking to the bottom, as, say, a rock would have, the ice stays on the top of the water. He wanted to protect His fish. The ice floats on top, and the fish continue to swim about in the waters below completely unaware of the amazing thing that has happened on their behalf.
    Everyone in heaven came to the show when the comets were about. They looked like balls of fire shooting through the blackness of space at enormous speeds, dragging a tail of ice behind. It was breathtaking to watch. To be candid, the first time I saw a comet, I thought Adonai must have created it as a toy. I tell you there was no limit to His flair. For example, who would have thought of making a blue sky to match the seas? Skies were black, at least the ones we had seen before.
    Then one day, He got an idea for something entirely different—and totally disruptive, I might add. How can I describe it? A rift? An interruption? Out of eternity where everything had been "now," He separated "now" into "past" and "present" and "future" and named it "time." Time had a beginning and passages and an end.
    Then He stepped out on the edge of time with His Father, and They observed what He had made. They liked the concept so much, They made everything else They created obedient to time. Even the universes and the stars and planets