I (There's the 'I”) Get a Break Today!

Before committing to my plan to work through names from A to Z, I checked my Encyclopedia of World Biographies and made sure there were names beginning with “Q” and “Z”. But surprise surprise, now I find that there are no names starting with the letter “I”. So today I get the chance to address an “I”mportant “I”ssue, one that my Challenge postings so far may have “I”nitiated some “I”nterest “I”n. (I think I got that out of my system now, thank you for your patience.)

I have been peeking into the lives of various people and asking myself “Why does God love _______?” So far I have learned about all kinds of people that were only vague mysteries to me before. And I have recognized more than ever, that there are a multitude of qualities in folks, all derived from being made in God's image, that make His children (us) very lovable indeed! In fact, having listed five or six qualities in each of the eight people examined so far, I don't think I have found any duplicate characteristics yet!

As those of you interested enough to wade through my overly long posts, I hope that there are two things happening. I hope you are looking at your own biography, and starting to identify qualities in your life that are reflections of God's own image, manifest in you. Not in some effort to foster a boasting self-esteem, but a serious and grateful recognition of who you are in God's creative work.

The second benefit I hope to be instigating, is for more of us to look appreciatively into other people's lives and find the perhaps foggy, shadowy, or even besmirched, image of God that is there. Too often we promote ourselves so much that the actual vine which connects us with our root in God is stretched too tight to function, or even breaks, and we drift away unconnected. I believe, however, that God's stamp remains. Look intently into the sometime fog. His image can be found.

There is one, even more vital point I want to make on the subject of God's great love for us, but I will wait and see if another gap in my name list appears, or I will bring it up at the end. Until then, thanks for reading my looooong posts, and please leave a comment or two below! 

Mike