The Spittin' Image

After my father's death, I took comfort in hearing that I looked like him.  There were times I would stand in front of the mirror and watch myself trying to hold my eyes as I saw his eyes in a much looked at picture.  I always stood a little straighter, felt a little prouder, and seemed more like a man than a boy when my aunts and uncles said to me, "Boy, you're the spittin' image of your Daddy."  To this day I like to think that I still reflect something of his image.

 

On the very first page of the Word of God, way back in the beginning of the book of Genesis, there is this Word which says, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness...So God created man in His image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them."  (Genesis 1:26-27)  Even as we bear something of the physical image of our parents, so do we bear something of the essence of the Creator Himself.  This divine image with which we are marked does not manifest itself in the visible and the physical, but in the invisible and the spiritual.

 

It is indeed a thought which goes beyond the ability of our minds to completely comprehend.  But, then it is not a matter for understanding, but a matter for praise.  As the Psalmist marveled at his own creation, he cried out to God, "I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are Your works."  (Psalm 139:14)  If looking at our physical body and seeing how it is  intrinsically put together causes praise to the Creator, how much more this is true when we consider that there is some integral part of us which bears the image, the marking, of the One who brought us into being.  How blessed we are to be seen in the heavenly places as one who bears the spittin' image of God.