Are You Living Like You're a Masterpiece?

There are characteristics of God in each of us. We all worship. We may not worship God, but we worship something. We desire a purpose. The purpose may elude us or dishonor our creator, but the desire is there. We all bear the Imago Dei. We were made in his image, and we reflect it to the world. We all were born to sin and struggle against sin throughout our lives. We all crave a sense of belonging. We yearn for a community where we can know and be known.

As I ponder why we spend so much time comparing ourselves to each other, I conclude it must have to do with the craving for the sense of belonging. We believe we must have commonalities in order to find community. Of course, it is easier to connect with others when we can find things in common. I’d suggest, though, that our friendships and communities would be richer if we placed more value in our differences.

I recently finished reading Love Does by Bob Goff, and he makes an excellent observation:

God doesn’t think any less of us when things don’t go right. Actually, I think he plans on it. What he doesn’t plan on is us putting a fake version of ourselves out there to take the hit. God is the master artist and made an original version of us, a priceless one that cost everything to create. A version that can’t and won’t be created again. He asks us to display that version of ourselves for everyone to see.

If we trust in the goodness of our creator and his ability to create, then we should have no fear in putting our genuine selves out into the world.

Our culture places high value on accomplishments and success but little value on mistakes and the process of learning. We could make a huge impact on our communities if we placed more value on the mistake and, more critically, on the lesson learned as a result of the mistake and the grace that should follow.

Our daughter is twelve and has a wifi-only phone. She primarily uses it in our home, and she has a few friends and relatives she can iMessage with. She recently received a chain text with a couple of inappropriate lines from one of her school friends. She passed it along to several other friends as well as to her aunt, who wisely alerted us to the situation. The mistake was an innocent one. She hadn’t read the text carefully (except the part about passing along, clearly), and she was upset when we spoke to her about it. We reminded her that in every message she sends, she is showing the recipient who she is. That chain text didn’t represent her at all. She put a fake version of who she was out there in order to look cool. She apologized to everyone she sent it to, and we extended grace for her mistake.

Can you imagine what a school playground might look like if we could teach our children to value differences? What if this concept extended to us as adults on social media? What if we could value the opinion of someone with whom we disagree while respectfully offering another perspective? What if we chose to risk and put our true selves out in the world every day–even the mistakes and the weird parts that don’t belong?

Living as a masterpiece doesn’t mean we like everything about ourselves or make no mistakes. Our flaws make room for growth, learning, and change. Living as a masterpiece means putting our true selves into the world and looking to our creator for our sense of belonging. Fortunately, he created others who will accept us for who we are.

There are many days when I lack the confidence to boldly go into the world as myself. Fortunately, God’s strength is made perfect in my weakness. I can choose to depend on him and be the masterpiece he made me to be, even when I don’t feel like one.

Amy Wiebe is a Jesus follower, wife, mom of three, church planter, finance director, and lover of sarcasm and deep conversation with friends. She also loves camping, rafting, skiing, sewing, and having people over. Amy blogs with her husband at fringechurch.com.