Made In His Image

Today I want to dip my artist brush in the color of laughter & fun.  When God decided to create us, He created us in His image.  That means we are like God in every way.  He gave us eyes to see with, ears to hear with, a mouth to speak with and to enjoy the foods we eat.  He gave us a brain to think with, a heart to love with, feet to walk with and to enjoy the many beauties of the earth that we can visit and walk to.  He gave us a physical body to enjoy the experiences of life with.  Our hands touch, feel, feed us, help us to write, to paint, to play music, to do all the miriad functions we do in life.  He created us with emotions too.  If we are touched by something wonderful, we can feel gratitude and enjoyment.  If we think about something sad, we cry.  When we do something wrong to someone, we feel guilty.  If something scares us we feel fear.  We have the ability to reflect on our past and our conscience  helps us to know right from wrong.

But what about Laughter & Fun?  Does God laugh?  Does He have fun?  Does He rejoice in his creation?  Do you think He made us in His image and that His image is only and always serious?  Think about it for a moment.  There are some pretty funny things that we as humans do.  There are some very funny things in this life.  Are we afraid to laugh?  Do we really think that a God of Love made us to always be serious and not have a sense of humor and the ability to enjoy life?  I think sometimes about the statement about God being a comedian playing to an audience who is afraid to laugh, and I see a whole other side of God.  God made us in His image, and thus we are multi-faceted.  There were some churches around when I was very young, that forbade the women to cut their hair, or to wear dresses that had short sleeves.  No makeup, no pretty things to wear.  They had many rules and rigid expectations of their congregations.  But to laugh and have fun was not one of them.

To me, God is my Daddy.  He tells me in his word that He is my Heavenly Father.  That He loves me and created the world the way it is so I can have abundant life.  He wants me to have health  & to prosper in all I do.  He is kind, loving, warm, my Father.  He wants to hear about what I'd like to accomplish in life, and when I'm sad He shares in my sorrow.  So why not think that if I am made in His image, why wouldn't He also have the ability to laugh with us and have fun, the way we have fun when our little babies begin to walk and talk and do funny things? We think He is rigid, so righteous that we can't approach Him, and when someone we love is terminally ill, we often lash out at God for letting this happen.

But God is Love.  Above all things, He Loves us.  He made us all different, each one is unique.  He has a variety of colors of skin, hair, eyes, and all sizes, small, large, round, thin, tall & short, with different favorite colors, different personalities, different tastes in things we like and things we don't like.  We are special.  Like no other species on earth.  Made to have dominion over the earth and take care of it and the living creatures we encounter on earth.  But often we are complaiing and wining about our predicaments, and they are often caused by our own carelessness and lack of attention.  A different God than what most think of Him.  So much variety to life.  And we are His people, made in His image, from top to bottom and inside and out, made in His image.  So I choose to think of God as my Daddy...I find I can laugh with Him, and have fun with Him, and be His child.  At the end of the day, I can go to Him and tell Him about my day without the fear of being rejected or found unholy because something funny happened to me today that I want to laugh abouut with Him.

We live our lives so seriously.  We struggle to achieve things.  We set up rigid rules and laws to follow.  We race around daily from place to place meeting deadlines, and trying to earn a living.  We struggle from sunup to sundown and fall into bed exhausted and often we find nothing funny about life.  Perspective.  Sit back and look at all we consider important to have.  We want a new car, a bigger house, a better job, more money, and then when we have it all, we find we are ill and can't enjoy our labors.  We work at a frantic pace to gain all these material things and never think about the God who made us.  I think He laughs.  I think He finds us funny and I think if we changed our view of God, the world would be a happier place for all of us.  We are all made in His image.  Our colors don't matter.  Our sizes don't matter.  Only to us.  We judge according to color, race, religion, and we segregate ourselves according to our status in life.

Perhaps it's time we dip our paint brushes in a new color and paint a different picture of the one who made us.  And He made us one and all, for Love.  For His Love.  For his Son.  For life.  He made  us to enjoy the life we have and to laugh and have fun.  It's not a sin.  When he made Eden, He made it for us.  Paradise?  That's for us too.  Provided for from beginning to end.  A god of Love.  A god who can laugh with us and have fun with us.  A god who shares in the good and the bad.  A God of laughter amd joy.  What have you been denying yourself?  You need laughter.  You need fun.  You need a less rigid view of the one who made you.  Just a new color, on a new pallet of life.  The ability to laugh and find humor in things was made into us, and we are made in His image, from beginning to end.