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Genesis 1:26 NLT

…in our image...

I am wonderfully made in the image of God. Yet, what of me is in the image of God? We reach out to God, yet we grasp only fragments of God’s character and nature. However, while we cannot approach God, for God is holy, God can approach humanity, God’s creation. And God made that move in the incarnation of Jesus.

Each of us is fearfully and wonderfully made and has kingdom reality implanted in our divine DNA. One provocation that led me to God was my work with young Oxfam through my teenage years. I planned on becoming a field worker with Oxfam, except that my thought processes became distracted by the reality that for every famine response we successfully mounted, a few years later famine returned with the same devastating consequences. We were dealing with a symptom and not a cause. So I began to engage politically – but also rather too emotionally. I had to battle with disillusionment as I lived in a world of plenty but where only a small minority of the global population benefited. On becoming a Christian I simply entered a world in which the same problem was reinforced. Faith appeared no more able to address inequality than faithlessness, and this after a number of years working with significant Christian organisations who espoused justice as a Christian theme. Yet, my cynical mind saw the Church was often as compromised as any other mediating agency.

It is to our shame that we have proven ineffective as stewards in this world. I have grown more silent in recent years, embarrassed at the litany of well-intentioned justice rhetoric that so easily flows from my mouth. I sincerely mean it, but don’t always live it. So now I pray, the most potent weapon in the Christian’s armoury, reaching out to involve myself in the few lives around me where I can practically support and encourage.

QUESTION: Where does God’s kingdom run counter to this world’s in your personal life choices?

PRAYER: Almighty creator, help us steward this world with justice and generosity; to act in your image.