God did not begin with creation
Genesis opens with God creating the heavens and the earth, not with God coming into existence (Genesis 1:1). The Bible presents him as the One who already is. Psalm 90 says that before mountains, land, and the world were formed, God was God from everlasting to everlasting (Psalm 90:2).
That means creation was not God’s beginning. The universe has a beginning, but God does not. John says that the Word, who is Jesus, was already with God and was God in the beginning, before all created things came through him (John 1:1-3).
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
There may not have been a normal “before”
We naturally imagine a long stretch of time before the first day of creation. But the Bible’s creation story begins when God makes the world and its ordered days (Genesis 1:1-5). Time as we experience it, with days, change, and waiting, belongs to this created world.
So the question is still worth asking, but it has a limit. God is not trapped inside the passing sequence that traps us. Scripture calls him eternal, while describing the visible and invisible creation as made through Christ and for Christ (Colossians 1:16).
The Father loved the Son
Jesus gives a remarkable glimpse into God’s life before creation. On the night before his crucifixion, he spoke to the Father of the love the Father had for him before the foundation of the world (John 17:24). God was never lonely or incomplete.
Christians have long seen this as part of what Scripture reveals about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God’s love did not begin because people were created. Creation is a gift flowing from the God who already had fullness of life and love.
Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
God also had a purpose of grace
The Bible says God saved and called his people by grace given in Christ Jesus before the world began (2 Timothy 1:9). Paul also says that God chose believers in Christ before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). These verses do not answer every question about how God’s purpose and human choices fit together, and Christians differ on that.
Still, they make one thing clear: God did not create in panic, need, or uncertainty. His purpose was already known to him. The God who made all things is not distant from your life. He has acted in Christ with grace that reaches deeper than the age of the universe.