It is a curious thing, to suggest that humans, male and female, are themselves the image of God, the Creator, ruler god. The uncaused cause. This statement in the first book of the Bible has prompted many discussions, along various lines of thought. What does it mean, to be God’s image; what is it, to be like God? For certainly, God is many things. And so are humans. Some things about us we are tempted to attribute to things other than God. Surely, this part of myself isn’t the image of God. Surely this is just me being human, and messed up. I shouldn’t be this way. I should be more like God.
Such are the thoughts that I have. Usually, this thought is directed at aspects of myself which I view as weak; the parts of me that can be wounded, which must therefore not be very strong, certainly are not godlike. But, to say such a thing is to say that God does not feel pain, or that when He does, He is not acting as Himself. As though when the Maker of the stars is grieved by the hatred, death, sin, pain and discord in the world, He is simply breaking character. Surely God is the epitome of strength, and therefore does not feel hurt. And from that thought it follows that for me to be strong and godlike, I must be beyond hurt, beyond suffering in my spirit. This idea, however, is utterly contrary to reality, and while you may apply it to other gods, you cannot rightly apply it to the God of Abraham.
I used to think that suffering, especially suffering of the heart, meant weakness. Because of this, I have wished not to feel such things; wished to be hard enough in my heart that I was not harmed by others, wished to be above hurt, in control of myself, strong like a tower of steel founded upon ancient stone. Certainly, this would be a selfish thing, as I believe I have always known. But a part of me also thought it would make me more like God, in a sense. Somehow I have not related well to how such a powerful, eternal being, could be also so very vulnerable. It seems at first glance to be incongruous, contradictory. But the Scriptures testify otherwise. And what else can I base my assumptions on, if the God of these Scriptures is the one whose image I believe I bear?
“The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him to His heart.”
I say all this as a preface. Because God and I have been in a strange place of late. It seems to me that each year of my life has been more difficult than the last, and under this pressure, my relationship with God has been strained, and tested. I have been learning about myself, as well as Him. One thing I have learned of late, is that I as a human, made in the image of the Almighty, feel things very strongly. I have become more aware of this recently, not only through my own experience, but through learning more about how others process life, how they feel things. It is clear to me now that we do not all feel in the same way, or to the same extent. Further, none of us is wrong in the way that our emotions function, we are merely different. I am not unique in the depth to which I feel things, but I may not be the most common sort. Some people do have less difficulty with emotion than others, just as some people are more naturally inclined to be introspective, some more athletic, some more poetic, some tall and others short; some are born with musical abilities that inspire awe, others with minds full of mathematics. None of these types of people is wrong in the way that they are, they are merely different from others. Mozart was different, Van Gogh was different, Einstein was different, Thoreau was different. And through their differences, they added to the image of God, which is incomplete in each of us as individuals, yet points to something beautifully full and strong when we stand together as a united body. To be most effective in this body, we each must know, and accept, our place in it.
I am learning that my place is not the same as others’.
Some suggest that those who feel as I do simply feel too much. They suggest that we “take a break” from all the feeling. But they misunderstand us when they say such things. They attempt to impose upon us their standard of normal, which to us is strange indeed. To feel is natural. Would you ask me to diminish that which God has given me? For some, to bear the image of God means to bear in our hearts the emotion of God. What would this God be without His capacity for love, His passion, His deep and jealous desire for the good of His creation? The pain which this God feels is a direct and necessary result of the love which He bears — and to suggest that He does not feel this pain, is to deny the love which He has given. For God showed His love for us by the shedding of His own blood; the acceptance of us, in the midst of our rejection of Him.
“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell.”
Two things which I have felt a great deal of late, are loneliness, and sadness. They are weighty things, like a great wet blanket draped over my lungs, heart and head. I have come lately to a place where I cannot ignore them, but must simply bear up under them. They are real, and they are very strong, and there is nothing at all wrong in feeling them. They are simply there. As a concept, loneliness is difficult to understand for anyone who has not truly experienced it as an emotion. Sadness, which is equally difficult, is often looked at as something to simply be got over — finish up with it, so you can move on and no longer feel it. As if it is wrong to feel sadness. As if it is wrong to feel anything. I will say that it is not comfortable, certainly it is not easy, but it could not be further from the truth to say that it is wrong. For God feels this sadness. If I am to be as He is, I must share somewhat in His emotions.
“He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he has born our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.”
Imagine for a moment that you are holding hands with another. You needn’t, of course, base all of your decisions upon the feeling of this person’s hand in yours. But even if you are not focused on it, even if your attention is altogether occupied with other things, while their fingers are held in yours, you will feel them. You will know that they are there. Now imagine that this person whose hand is in yours is afraid, and because of their fear they are squeezing just a little too tightly, and refuse to let go. You carry on about your business, continue living life, but feel always the pressure of their grasp, just uncomfortable enough that at any point during which your attention is not wholly upon something else, you feel the pain of it. No wrong has been done. But there is pain, nonetheless. And this is life.
“But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honourable use and another for dishonourable?”
This is where I have been of late. I am not bitter about it, nor in denial, nor am I begging for release, as I have been at other points in my life. I feel a weight, because there is a weight upon me. That’s okay. It’s okay to feel this way. To let any feeling be on its own the determiner of my life would be foolish; to ignore it, pretend it wasn’t there, would be equally so. I am learning, slowly, to be where I am, and what I am.
I want to challenge you today. If you don’t understand what it is to feel this way, then find someone who does, someone who lives with this as their norm. I believe there are more of us than we realise. In part because each of us, to some degree, thinks that we are alone in our feeling, that we are strange and in some way wrong in the way that we are. If you can, talk to someone, and find out how they feel, what emotion looks like in their life. Accept that even if their experience is completely contrary to your own, that doesn’t mean it’s untrue. Accept that we are all different, separate parts of a greater whole, each with something to add. Learning to better understand one another is the first step in knowing how to love each other well. Let’s learn together. For only in unity is a body strong.
love,
— Joel