He's a Lot Like You

"So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27)

This Scripture completely blows my mind. Did you ever stop to just think about this? We’re created in the image of God, Himself. He made all the plants and all the animals on the earth and in the air and in the sea. He made all the planets and stars. He made all that we can see, taste, touch, smell, and hear. He even made the all angels in Heaven. But when He came to us, He chose to make us like Himself—His own self-portrait, painted by the hands of the best artist the world has ever known.

And no, we’re not exactly like God, just like a portrait is not exactly like the original. And we certainly should not consider equality with God something to be grasped (Philippians 2:6). But isn’t it awesome that God chose to make us enough like Himself that we could relate to Him and understand Him and know Him through our own experience!

Yet what does this mean about God’s character?

It means He has emotions like us. It means He has joy. He has sorrow. He has anger. He falls in love (He is love). He trusts. He hopes. He dreams.

God laughs like we do. He cries like we do. He feels like we do, communicates like we do, thinks like we do (in a much higher and purer way than we do, but still in similar fashion). It means He’s creative like we are. It means He makes choices like we do. It means He can be persuaded or change His mind like we do (Genesis 18:16-32, Genesis 32:9-14, Luke 18:1-7). He also enjoys friendships and relationships like we do.

Being made in His image, we have a lot in common, and that means that we can relate to God like nothing else in all creation. It means that He understands us—every fear and every longing, every joy and every excitement, every anger and injustice, every hard decision, every lost love, every hurt, every hope, every dream. He understands us because He is like us (or rather we are like Him). And of course, this also means that we can understand God, even if it’s only in part.

Sometimes it can be hard to remember the “humanity” of God. We distance ourselves from Him, feeling that He really can’t relate to our situations, or feeling like we have nothing in common to base our relationship on. But when I think of being made in His image, I suddenly realize that I can relate to Him as a friend, that I can bring my problems to Him and that He’ll understand, that I can trust Him, that I can follow Him where He’s going, and that I can let Him raise me as my father to be even more in His image. It means that I have the capacity and ability to be more like Him, and that gives me hope that perhaps this dream He’s given me is attainable after all.

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