You Are God’s Great Idea
For the week of October 26, 2024 / 24 Tishri 5785
Bereshit
Torah: Bereshit/Genesis 1:1 – 6:8
Haftarah: Isaiah 42:5 – 43:11
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Bereshit/Genesis 1:26-27)
Did you know that you are God’s great idea? That’s something my wife likes to remind our kids (and others) on their birthday. That’s very different from my mom telling me on more than one occasion that I was an accident. Perhaps you have heard worse. But no matter what you have heard, my wife is right. Each and every human being is here by design, God’s design. Are we born into a broken world, inheriting the same brokenness as every other human since Adam and Eve? Sure. Do some find themselves having to face greater levels of brokenness than others? Certainly. But does that change that each of us has been equally endowed with God’s image to represent him and his purposes in the world? Absolutely not.
It is one thing to know that you are God’s great idea. It’s another to discover how that great idea is to be lived out. It hasn’t been easy for me to shed my mother’s negative perspective. The words we hear and the experiences of our early years make indelible imprints upon us. I am so grateful to God for rescuing me when he did (see My Story), but that didn’t automatically change how I thought about myself or all the patterns of thinking I developed as a child.
God has done all sorts of things in the past decades to free me of my misguided thoughts, including using my wife, to remind me that I, too, am God’s great idea. Yet, all the good reminders in the world will make no difference unless we accept a most fundamental principle of life, as found in this week’s parsha (weekly Torah portion). Indeed, our being made in God’s image is the basis of our identity, value, and purpose. Just as idols are representations of false gods, so human beings, as made in God’s image, are his representatives. We might think that this alone should remedy just about any false notion we have about ourselves, but there is something more basic than this.
Intrinsic to God’s design of human beings is our distinctiveness as male and female. Not only are males and females purposely different from one another, this difference is essential to our being made in God’s image. That throughout the ages, the relationship between males and females has been fraught with innumerable challenges doesn’t undermine the importance of the sexes in representing God in the world. However, despite how essential our male-female differences are, there is still something even more basic that we need to be aware of before we can discover who we really are.
As objects of God’s purposeful design, the only way to resolve identity confusion is through the God who made us. And yet, many of us believe that we possess within us all we need to fix our problems. We are convinced that self-discovery and self-assertion can free us from every life obstacle as we embrace our brokenness as that which defines us. This venture establishes the self as the standard of who we are. It assumes we have what it takes to determine the nature of our design and how best to fulfill our purpose. But how do we know what is good or bad for us? Is it those things that make us comfortable, popular, or rich? If we had been self-created, we might have the tools to make us what we should be, but we are not. We are God-created, made in his image for his purposes. Only our Designer holds the key to all we are meant to be.
The truth about ourselves can only be discovered outside of ourselves. The journey within will only lead us further astray. That doesn’t mean we should ignore ourselves. Taking responsibility for our brokenness and the many ways it manifests is crucial to finding freedom in God. But here too, the only way to effectively determine what’s wrong with us is by accepting the Designer’s assessments and solutions.
I shudder to think what it would have been like to give into my desires and self-perceptions, allowing my feelings to define me while demanding that others affirm my self-assessment. What a hellhole that would have been! I am so grateful that by God’s power, I was able to accept myself as a sinner in need of God’s forgiveness through the Messiah. Only then was I ready to hear that I am God’s great idea!
Scriptures taken from the English Standard Version
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