We humans are different from other creatures – birds and fish, beasts making up earth’s animal kingdom. As with animals, humans do of course get hungry. We grow thirsty. We are fueled with a drive to reproduce.
And yet.
We stand much apart from the families of cows and of dogs and of giraffes.
Humans have souls. Another way of putting it is we are souls. Among the most ancient writings found in what is called “wisdom literature” – we are offered a remarkable idea. Human beings are created as “image bearers” of God.
This is a big thought. That we share important qualities found inside the nature of God himself. Though we certainly are not God, nor could we ever become God.
Ancient Bible texts make the bold claim, “So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27 NLT).
For some of our readers, such an idea as this may come as a new thought. Let us look a little closer.
Assume that we are made by God for relationship with him. If so, such a condition might give rise to a certain nagging hunger within us. Such a hunger does exist. It is a kind of hunger straining within every culture and among every generation. We grapple with the yearning again and again. We are hungry creatures indeed.
For me, my hunger for God went like this.
In my most quiet and private and honest moments I sensed a “knowing” – an awareness that something was missing.
“What if the something is God” I wondered, “my designer, my maker, a someone who keeps me going?”
Opening the ancient texts (the Bible) my questions continued. . .
“What if God is the one being in all the cosmos who knows me through and through? “And suppose, furthermore, that he is perfectly wise and is the full embodiment of what we feebly call love.
“What if he has fashioned me so that he and I – along with others – may actually enter a living relationship together. Growing ever richer in peace and joy (inseparable companions of love), continuing on and on forever?”
This was, I realized, what the Bible was telling me.
My appetite grew.
(c)2022 Jerry Lout