The Long Journey Home, Part 1

As I looked toward the next year, and considered where God might take these paragraphs, I thought to take us on a journey. To walk together through scripture in order to help us see how our own personal stories here in the basin fit within the greater story of God. That we might come to see and be encouraged by the purpose and design of God for our lives. In a world that seems to have come unhinged from reality and is in constant motion, we need help to navigate and find our direction.  And that direction comes in seeing how all of life orients in relation to a creator God who desires to lead us on the long journey home.
We’ll start at the beginning with the creation narrative.  -Genesis 1: 26-27
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
It is in this short statement that the foundation is laid for how we understand what it means to be human.
First, we are made unique from the rest of creation. We are made in the image of God, all of us. This connects us to God in ways different from the rest of His creation. As much as I like my dogs or have enjoyed raising and training horses over the years, neither of these are on an equal plane within the created order. You and I were made unique and special. 
Second, because we are unique in all of creation as “image bearers” of the creator, there is placed within each human a value, a dignity and a purpose beyond that of the rest of the created order. It is this understanding that stands behind the fight for the sanctity and dignity of all human life. It means that as a person you have equal value with everyone else no matter what they or others think or say. Your value is determined by creation not in relation to your capacity to produce or meet certain cultural requirements.
Third, to be made in the “likeness” of another is to establish an indisputable and irrevocable connection with the imaging source. Because we are created by God in His image, our humanity is defined by, given meaning through, and purposed by Him. I am connected to God by nature of His creative work and whether I acknowledge it or not He has knowledge and authority over me through that act. Like the engineer of a machine is most qualified to write the manual on its purpose, care and parameters of operation, God is most qualified to provide us with insight into what it means to be human and the function of humanity.

(Aaron Gesch is pastor of Basin First Baptist Church.)