A fascinating book on what it means that you and I are made in the image of God is “The Mind of the Maker” by Dorothy L. Sayers.
Sayers graduated at the top of her class from Oxford in 1916. Women
could not receive degrees in those days, and she graduated without one. She
did not let the short-sightedness of the men at Oxford get in her way. She possessed a fierce intelligence and wit. A friend and co-belligerent of C.S. Lewis, they exchanged many heated letters over the years. She writes in “The Mind of the Maker” that the one thing that most reveals what it means to be made in the image of God is
that we are co-creators. Unlike him, we cannot create from nothing, but must
use the materials of His creation. When however, we take these materials and
shape them into something else, we tap into something that is very deep within
us and of God.
When someone takes the inside of a cotton plant changed to thread and woven into fabric, then uses it to make a dress for their child, they show themselves to be someone made in the image of God. When you gather vegetables, meats, grain ground into flour, add spices, and cook it atop your stove or bake it in the oven, something of God is seen, smelled, and tasted. When a man and woman come together in love and a child is born, the image of God in flesh and blood is revealed for all to look upon and wonder at.
I am a builder. When I am given the opportunity to design and build a home for someone, I will often stand back at the end of a day’s work and simply stare at it. I take the home into myself and draw pleasure from its progress. I delight in its shape and finish, and how the loving labors of so many different people have contributed to it. It amazes me that an abstract and intangible idea of a home is capable of becoming a tangible shelter and sanctuary for life to happen and flourish in.
There are times at the end of such a day when I quietly speak to myself saying, “It is good.” I intuit in these moments what God must have felt at the close of each creation day when he stood back, looked upon his work and said, “It is good.”
It is good!
It is very good!
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