It’s in so many stories, so many movies, so many songs. I think we must all sense it.

It’s the tale of a nobody who ends up being something incredibly special.

It’s the tale of Harry Potter, Mia Thermopolis, Alex Stowe, Clark Kent, John Connor, Peter Parker, Thomas Anderson, Luke Skywalker, Bilbo Baggins.

I think we’re drawn to these characters not simply out of some greedy hope that we’ll make it big one day, but because somewhere inside, like a distant memory, we do relate with them.

It’s right that you should feel this way.

As a man or a woman, the image of God is stamped into your body. This means, in all of creation, God has given man and woman an honored roll, a beloved place in the Story he’s writing. He formed your being as a man or as a woman to image (to express, reveal, manifest) something of who God is to all of creation.

You women bear a likeness to God that no other creature in all of creation does. And men, you bear God’s likeness in a way no other creature in all of creation does. Women don’t bear God’s image like men do, and men can’t bear God’s image like women do.

In God’s design, this isn’t a threatening notion to either men or women. It’s a reason for esteem.

If women bear God’s image upon the earth in ways no other creature (including men) can, then how could we not honor women and seek their flourishing that God’s image may flourish upon the earth?

And if men bear God’s image upon the earth in ways no other creature (including women) can, then how could we not honor men and seek their flourishing that God’s image may flourish upon the earth?

(Unless of course, we want to see less of God, forget him, lose any sense of him.)

It’s frustrating to write about this. To my reading, my own words don’t do justice to the dignity that is intended for us as male and female.

But maybe that’s part of the point. God didn’t just say something about who he is. He manifested it in our bodies.

It makes sense why we find ourselves drawn to stories, movies, and songs about a nobody who becomes someone spectacular.

The incarnation of Christ was, in a very real way, like the point in the story when Clarisse tells Mia she is the Princess, when Obi Wan tells Luke he will become a Jedi like his father, when Jonathon Kent showed Clark the space capsule he arrived in, when Morpheus tells Neo he’s “the One,” when Hagrid tells Harry he’s a wizard, when Aslan tells the Pevensies they’re to be kings and queens in Narnia.

What are some of your favorite stories of a nobody who eventually is shown to be someone spectacular? I’d love to hear.

Humbled, honored,
Josh