Created in the image of God? Oops

Apparently, we are created in the image of God. In this article, I explore what I would discover to be a powerful and humbling phenomenon of what being “created in the image of God” both physically and in essence is.

For starters, if I were to ask you to create an image of God in your mind, how does God look physically? What is your understanding of how God thinks, behaves, or feels?

Anyway,  by being “created in the image of God,” does it mean we look exactly like God both physically and in essence? Do we act, behave, or think like God? Do we have God’s abilities?

When I look at myself in the mirror, I usually like what I see and fall in love with myself…lols. But this time I had a different intention for looking at myself in the mirror. I was trying to understand how  is it that I am created in the image of God.

So this guy that I am seeing in the mirror is a split image of God? An illustration of God? Wow! I started getting excited about how I am an image of God, good looking, smart, and all the nonsense that comes with me. But I also wondered whether being created in the image of God implies the physical only or is it also the essence of my being, meaning who I am holistically. Not only physically but also how I think, act, behave, and experience life.

Wait, before I could answer the questions, I heard a whisper… how many other people look at themselves in the mirror and admire themselves like you do? Shame! I was humbly reminded that mirrors weren’t made just for me.

So, do others also know or realize that they are created in the image of God? Just when I thought I am the only image of God. Well, since jealousy is not the subject of this article, I further asked myself, if my family members, friends, and the entire village, etc., look at themselves in the mirror and acknowledge that they are all created in the image of God, how then does God really look like?

If God had a physical body and we are created in his image, how is it possible that we all look like God? I mean you, me, and them all as you know them? If God had a face, would it be a combination of all our faces in one? Or is God’s image divided into small portions, and each of us are that one part of the image of God? Maybe.

Is it by design that we are so different, yet all created in the image of God? I mean physically God is female, male, fat, skinny, tall, short, light-skinned, dark-skinned, father and mother, brother and sister, husband and wife, rich and poor, etc. In essence, God is both funny and boring, smart and stupid, pleasant and annoying, educated and uneducated, loving and vengeful, well-traveled and less-traveled? I mean, after all, this is how we label or describe each other, so this is also in a way our description of the image of God, if we are created in the image of God.

If we are to all rightfully claim that we have been created in the image of God, and no one individual can claim exclusive rights to having been created in the split image of God, what does this mean for us or what is expected of us?

This thought process helped me further my understanding of the meaning of “not judging others.” Not judging others is one of the hardest things to do, yet foundational for acknowledging that we all are created in the image of God.

Let me bring it home some more. In this lifetime, we have likely met, encountered, or heard of thieves, heartbreakers, murderers, sadists, narcissists, etc. Whose image are they created from? God or something else? Okay, maybe that was a bit too uncomfortable. Now think of people you have encountered that have made you laugh, feel joy, gave you butterflies, or took care of you when you needed help. Do these sound more like people created from the image of God?

My take is, if truly we are ALL created in the image of God, regardless of the ugly and the beautiful in us, we represent that one holistic image of God.

My perspective is, regardless of the experiences we get from one another in life, be it discomfort or comfort, both are created in the same image of God that we are.

By learning to appreciate others without judging, I am learning to replace the different labels we have given each other with the image of God. If I see a tall or short person, a lazy or hardworking person, a drunk or sober person, a woman or a man, a villager or a city person, etc., I should remember that these are just all images of God. All these people are created in the image of God. The people I meet in this lifetime might bring comfort or discomfort to me, but it doesn’t change that they are created in the image of God.

Maybe there is a reason why I meet different people that bring both discomforting and comforting experiences into my life. Whether this is to help me acknowledge the holistic image of God, and not what I narrowly choose, I am yet to decipher.

In the end, I imagine not all of who/what we are is a choice made by us knowingly. As such, if we are inherently created in the image of God, then the more I see and appreciate others as mini images of God, the more peace I experience.