Made in the image of God, part 1

Posted on February 18, 2009

[Moderator's note. The next three blog entries comes from Kathrin Halder, fellow member of the Society. Kathrin lives in Germany and teaches at IGNIS (a Christian psychology educational center)]

In my Christian life I was raised in a Protestant surrounding. We were taught frequently about the sinful, weak, powerless, and dependent nature of humanity. We seemed to live by the core value of being small and humble. In contrast to this value, I was confronted with a Humanist approach in my psychological studies that conflicted with my Christian teaching. I felt that this teaching conflicted with a biblical view of human nature (and still agree with this assessment to a significant degree).

But as I have grown and counselled others, I began to see that always focusing on sin and inadequacy, always focusing on humility promoted depression instead of well-being in many.

 

With further study, I came to the surprising conclusion that there are also Christians that view human nature very differently. They view mankind as God’s good creation, fearfully and wonderfully made. I recognized the need to make adequate provision for the concepts of creation grace and the image of God in my understanding of human nature.

 

This struggle to balance the concepts of grace and human depravity continue to be an issue for many of us—even for those of us who teach these concepts. I admit that despite my own teaching about the need to balance these concepts, I didn’t understand what I was saying in my deep inner being. It took quite some while (and space doesn’t allow for going in detail on the how) for the Spirit of God to reach the deeper areas of my heart and to open my eyes to a core aspect of His view of me:

 

“Yet You have made him [man] a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty!

You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet” (Psalm 8,5-5 out of New American Standard Bible 1995).

 

In ME, the little Kathrin, is something that is LIKE God. The very being of God is in ME. He has made ME wonderfully, there is glory and majesty in ME. His light is in ME so that I can radiate it. His love is in ME, so that I can really live my calling to pass it on to others. He has given everything under MY feet, He has given ME strength and wisdom to rule over creation and has given ME power to overcome the world.

 

It took a while for the spirit of God to soak me in this understanding. It took a while for my heart to grasp a little bit of that what my head had taught (at least in part). But as I grew in this knowledge, it lead to a deep rejoicing of what God had done in me, had given to me and a kind of thankfulness came out of me, I had never experienced. And I am still on the way …

 

It sounds strong (and there certainly is a need for some words to balance this in the next post), but truly it had a strong impact on me. Let me close with some words of Nelson Mandela, where I don’t know whether I agree on everything (e.g. that it’s our power and light we fear most), but that still touched me in the direction of this post:

 

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,
but that we are powerful beyond measure.It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give
other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others. (Nelson Mandela) 

 

Modernism and Its Impact on Spirituality

Posted on February 2, 2009

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