i had a revelation today while i was sitting at work reading some of my old blog posts. i guess i should explain that i am by no means any more a narcissist than the next person. i read my old posts, because they remind me of where i have been, lessons i have learned, truths i have discovered (more like been shown), and ways i have grown. anyway. i was reading my post from just a week or so ago - the one about the "sex and the city" episode. here is the truth jesus revealed to my heart this afternoon while sipping an aquafina, avoiding entering anecdotal notes, and talking to a 6-year-old about justin bieber:
genesis 1 tells me that i am created in God's image. chapter 3 - enter: sin. i don't really have this next part worked out in my head yet. i'm not sure i ever will. because i've never known life apart from sin, i can't imagine what it would have been (or will be) like to experience complete unity with God the Father. i know that Jesus reconciles me to God, but i'm still a sinful, self-seeking, prideful human. adam and eve's sin cost a lot more than a few fig leaves. it totally distorted them - down to their very souls. no longer were their hearts in tune with their heavenly Father's, untainted by evil. they didn't share his desires, and most importantly, they had severed their relationship with a holy God. their image no longer reflected His. while He was holy, righteous and untouched by even the hint of sin, adam and eve had contaminated their hearts and lives with ugly, dirty, condemnable sin. and the thing about sin is that it doesn't leave you as you were. it always transfigures you; it deforms you. there's nothing imperfect about our holy God. everything He does and says is acted in complete sovereignty and justice - above reproach. He is the absolute, true, wise, and pure King whose glory radiates totally unbroken.
what does this mean for me?
it means that when i'm seeking worth and value and affirmation in a man (or any other person, for that matter) who has also been deformed by sin, i will never find it. i already wrote on this briefly, but Jesus has really been breaking this truth down bit by bit and teaching me so much. i'm seeking to find pieces of myself that God fashioned together when He made me in His image, but that were misplaced, strewn about, and some even lost as my sinfulness was exposed. the problem is that i'm seeking these things from men who are also broken, distorted, and empty. i know Jesus. i have surrendered my life to Him, and my deepest desire is to know Him and love Him and serve Him. but that doesn't automatically fix me. i still have the same struggles, the same issues, the same insecurities, the same wretched heart. how can i find completion in another incomplete person? i can't.
i don't think i'm doing a very good job of explaining everything that's in my head. i know this is probably basic information, but for the first time i'm really understanding what it is to be made in God's own image. the ONLY One who can accurately reflect who i really am - who i was created to be - is God my Father. a man will never be able to show me the woman that i was intended to be, because he is not the man he was intended to be. (note: i know that Jesus is the great Restorer of souls, but in my hummanity i will never be the woman He created to be.) my image - formed delicately, sensitively, thoughtfully, after God's own image - was not meant to be discovered in a man, but in my Creator. if you want to know everything there is to know about a watch, would you ask the person wearing the watch or would you ask the man who designed and crafted the watch, knowing every gear and every feature? you'd ask the man who made it. if i want to discover all the beauty and worth and value that God created me to innately possess, shouldn't i seek that in Him and not in any other person?
friends, my mindset has been so altered over the past few hours as i've thought on this. i am made in the very image of the Creator of the universe. the One who formed mountains with His fingertips, made man from dust, hung every star in its place, numbered every hair on my head, and named every grain of sand. the God who is mighty, just, compassionate, beautiful, emotional, thoughtful, merciful, protective, jealous, righteously angry, relational, glorious, and far beyond anything i could ever dream. i am a product of His great love and infinite imagination. He displays His power in His creation - trees, oceans, wheat fields, mountains, and sunrises, but He displays His person, His heart, His spirit in His people.
my prayer is that i would seek to discover myself in Him and in Him alone; that i wouldn't seek affirmation from friends, family, or romantic interests; that i wouldn't crave satisfaction from earthly pleasures; that i wouldn't compare myself to the "images" i see on television, movie screens, or on magazine covers - but that i would simply REST in the truth that i am created in the image of my Creator.
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