A Better Image to Bear

The Three Image Bearers

This spinning globe can overwhelm.

I feel its’ burden most while transitioning from one year into the next new and unknown. The former year dressed in black tie and top hat, opens the door for the upcoming one making her debut in a billowing gown and train which hovers effortlessly over the threshold. Somehow this culture momentarily hypnotizes me into believing that’s the desired process of turning the page we should all be striving for. But new year reality never feels that cordial in my experience. I want to walk through that New Years’ door of possibility and opportunity too, preferably wearing a similarly magnificent dress, but too often I end up feeling like the one sneaking in under the radar. The one in survival mode wearing paint-stained jeans, a black t-shirt, and unkept manicure, trying not to let another year around the sun mentally bully me into feeling defeated. Or even worse, I feel like I’m trying to not get stopped by the door holder of last year, reminding me of all the ways I fell short and all I didn’t get accomplished.

It can make the best and worst of us feel like we need to scramble for fig leaves and hide in the bushes.

To hurry up with the cleaning ourselves up.

To fix our hair and cover up our dark circles already and keep on faking it till we make it. Maybe I am still faking it.

I know there’s a better way, but the grace journey from my head to my heart is complicated. I need a shortcut, we all do. We’re desperate for it actually because January brings a flood of new and it doesn’t give a rip that there is still so much undone and unanswered left in the old. Life keeps coming and it’s going to take more than a New Year’s resolution to keep us moving.

So what are our options?

The world offers gyms memberships, self help potions, and mind numbing scrolling, but they all miss the mark because they all miss the heart. And let’s be real, our problem isn’t our pants size, and this spinning globe has eternal issues weighing in the balance that resolutions can’t fix. We could listen to man’s manufactured feel good speeches, state of the union performances that are but a mirage to thirsty souls. A tidied up, cliched version of the state of us all. Forked tongues spewing fake promises from men who don’t know us. Year after year they attempt to paint hopeful paintings for a new year but the pigments will fade and run like lies before the cameras can even stop broadcasting.

What about a better way?

What if we said no to manmade resolutions and instead formally signed a resignation. Resigning from needing to know the outcome of every circumstance ahead in the new year, and the why’s of all the unanswered circumstances from the past one. Can we resign from striving too? Because I want to believe that there exists a holy obedience where knowing and being still is more productive than frantic hurry and rushing. And how about a ceasing from imaging anything except our Creator? Maybe this one is the most critical. What if instead of playing pretend dress up with our souls, we lay them bare and clothe ourselves in His image. What if all we do in the start of this new year is offer up a broken and contrite heart, and walk away from the altar wearing nothing but His righteousness? No games. No pretend. No striving. Just Him. All we have to do is claim it you know. Forget listening to the world, but rather listen to the One who actually knows us deeper than we can fathom, and still offers to trade His righteousness for our costumes. It would be a better year for us if we did. Remember who you are beloved. You don’t have to settle for a manufactured image, you have been equipped to image Him and His righteousness. That’s what makes for a joyful new year.

“ Our first and most important spiritual task is to claim God‘s unconditional love for ourselves. To remember who we truly are in the memory of God. Whether we feel it or not, whether we comprehend it or not, we can have spiritual knowledge in the heart - a deep assurance that passes understanding - that we are God’s beloved. This is not an easy identity to claim because to deserve being loved by our society, requires us to be successful, popular, or powerful. But God does not require our success, popularity, or power in order to love us. Once we discern our identity and accept God’s unconditional love, we are free to live in the world without being owned by the world. We can forgive those who hurt or disappoint us without letting bitterness, jealousy, or resentment, enter our hearts. The most beautiful fruit of claiming your belovedness is a joy that allows us to share God‘s unconditional love with others.”

Henri Nouwen, Discernment