In Made for More: An Invitation to Live in God’s Image, Hannah Anderson writes, “the goal of this book is to call women to recover an understanding of ourselves that is more basic than our gender. It’s a call to recover the image of God in our lives—to re-imagine not simply what it means to be a woman but what it means to be a person made in the very likeness of God Himself” (Location 131, Kindle version).
We tend to link our identity to various categories: gender, religion, vocation, location, political affiliation, etc. But such labels not only can’t embrace all of what we are, they can be divisive with people in other categories.
In order to know who we really are, we must first know who our Creator is—“accepting Him for who He is, not who we can conceive Him to be” (Location 287). Acts 17:28, Paul said, “In him we live and move and have our being.” “Simply put, there is one God and He is the Giver of all life. He created the world, and everything in it finds its source, its purpose, and its goal in Him” (Location 263).
Literally translated, imago dei simply means “in the image of God.” But in reality, imago dei means so much more. Imago dei means that your life has purpose and meaning because God has made you to be like Himself. Imago dei means that your life has intrinsic value, not simply because of who you are as an individual, but because of who He is as your God. Imago dei means that your life is sacred because He has stamped His identity onto yours (Location 402).
Yet God did not make us all alike. “We are different from each other and therefore dependent on each other. In other words, while each of us is fully made in the image of God, none of us can fully reflect and represent God alone. Instead we reveal the nature of God together; and as a result, we also find identity together” (Location 470).
Even though God created humans in His image, the first two sought their identity elsewhere, creating an identity crisis for the rest of the human race. “If they disobeyed, they would not simply be rejecting Him—they would be rejecting everything that was true about themselves as well. By choosing to turn from God to something else for knowledge, they would blind themselves to their own nature. And they would die because they would cut themselves off from the only thing that made them alive in the first place—God Himself” (Location 580).
Now, “Instead of living in dependent communion with Him, we fight for autonomy and the ability to rule our own lives; instead of loving and serving each other, we manipulate others to serve our own purposes; instead of exercising creative care of the earth, we consume it in our own greed and lust. Instead of unity, there is disunion; instead of harmony, there is brokenness” (Location 615).
The only way to get back to living in God’s image was for Jesus to identify with us that we might identity with Him.
The greatest identity shift that has ever happened was when God Himself became human and lived and died for us so we once more might live in Him. . .
[Jesus] is both the Image and the perfect Image Bearer, the Creator who deigns to live in His own creation. Despite being God, Jesus humbled Himself, took on human flesh, and came to live and die so that through His very life, death, and resurrection—through His metamorphosis—we ourselves might be changed (Location 764).
However, “Finding identity in Christ cannot be confined to one moment, because union with Christ is not simply an event; it is a state of being, a way of existing” (Location 810).
And that’s just the first third of the book. Hannah goes on to show how being made in God’s image affects what and how we love, our desires, roles, relationships, how we care for creation. Being made in God’s image, reflecting Him, guides our intellect, work, talents, and gifts.
The first book I read of Hannah’s was her advent book, Heaven and Nature Sing: 25 Advent Reflections to Bring Joy to the World, last December. I liked it so well, I wanted to read her other books. Though I didn’t do this on purpose, I ended up reading her books published at that time (two more have been written since) in reverse order according to my interest. Made for More was her first, but I read it last. Every time I considered it, I thought, “But I know what it means to be made in God’s image.” However, even though I knew basically what it meant, I had not considered it in all the depth and fullness and implications Hannah detailed here.
This is a book I should probably reread at regular intervals to remind myself of its truths.
I highly recommend this book to you, whether you have a working knowledge of what it means to be made in God’s image or not. If not, Hannah will explain it well. If so, you’ll understand it more fully and beautifully.
Stray Thoughts 