Who Are You - self perception

Though self perception is important it is not the total answer, because one’s image can be skewed. I once counseled with a woman who really felt she was the Virgin Mary. She had given away much of her belongings because “my son Jesus is coming to get me any day now.” Another, the bionic women who could leap tall buildings. (I asked her to show me and she said she hadn’t been wired yet that morning.)

We can’t allow self perception to evolve into heavy introspection. Paul Tournier, Swiss psychiatrist, behooves us: “self-examination is an exhausting undertaking. The mind becomes so engrossed in it that it loses its normal capacity for relationship with the world and with God. Locked in a narrow round of endless and sterile self-analysis, the person becomes shrunk and deformed, while false problems multiply ad infinitum.”

If heavy introspection should be avoided. If self perception is not the total answer. If man’s contradictory philosophies about himself is uncertain. If we live out our self perception, it might be wise to check out God’s description of man. (“Man” is used here as a generic term for either male or female.) What does God say about us?

GEN 1:27-28 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

God says about you and me is the beginning of the answer to “who are you.”
I am:
An image bearer of God
Of infinite value
Loved by God
Esteemed by God
Empowered by God for dominance over creation
Created in the image of God to rule over and subdue the earth; to be fruitful and multiply.

Because of this, ALL people are worthy of honor and respect, even the one who has committed the most heinous crime. The leader of the terrorists. The man who forced boys sexually, killed them and ate their body parts. Justice is to be meted out to this type of person. We are not to respect the behavior, but the personhood - created in the image of God.

If we’re created in God’s image, what happened? Why are we living in such an obscured image of the Creator? Be it the terrorist responsible for thousands of deaths, or you and I who worry or are fearful and demonstrate other then godly attitude or behavior. We’ve marred God’s image.

Where did the disfiguration begin? As one of my daughters (who was excusing her misbehavior) said as a preschooler, “If it weren’t for Adam, I wouldn’t be in trouble now.” God’s image lived through man became shrouded when Adam and Eve disobeyed God.

Tomorrow we'll look at the shroud.