I'm Like a ... Statue?

For the Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen's University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

I always knew we were created in the image of God. Genesis 1 makes that pretty clear, I think. But I never thought any further than what that meant for us as people. But this week I was challenged to take that view and make it more outward focused.

In a video Dan Wilt recorded for the aforementioned class, he brought this statement of us being God's image-bearers to a whole different degree.

He used the context of the passage, the way people centuries before us would have understood it. To paraphrase, he stated that when a king held a piece of land distant from his kingdom, to make the residents of this land recognize him, he would place an image of himself (a statue, a portrait, something).

Dan then stated something that I listened to several times; something that basically changed my worldview: "When people would look at that . . . image-bearing icon . . . as they looked at that they would recognize, in seeing this image we remember that we are under the rulership, the reign, the Kingship (or queenship) under the royal covering, under the protection of, under the strength of the ruller who has conquered us--the ruler who oversees as, as distant as they are."

Knowing, then, that we are image-bearers of God, thinking of that as some sort of declaration of our identity pales in comparison to the practical lifestyle for which this perspective calls.

When a person of the world (the "distant" land) sees me (the image), they are reminded of a King they quite possibly have never met.

While some people would see this as some strange pressure to live up to some unknown impossible standard, it excites me and encourages me that just by the simple fact that I acknowledge His rule and reign in my life, I already am that image.

As a girl who was homeschooled and entered a public community college, I didn't quite know what to make of this. I don't wear low-cut tops, but do the boys notice? I gave a speech on a "silent siege" I was a part of, but no one spoke to me or looked at me different. I missed a couple of Spanish classes for a Mexico mission trip and told my classmates, but all they said was, "I used to go to church." I always wondered how much of a difference my presence actually made. But this new perspective gives me so much more hope that just living and breathing in His power and in His love, I already am a witness.

I, for once, actually feel excited to go back to school in the fall.