The Quarter Wife

2020-2021 has. Been. Wild. I don’t even want to get into it. We all know what’s been happening and that does not bear repeating. Besides… everything… I have also been going through a deep wrestling with God. I have been questioning a lot, at times wondering if God’s mad at me, because I have many many questions. I cannot shake the feeling that there is more to God’s word than what has been presented to me.

The Scripture I have been wrestling with for a while is the seemingly innocuous:

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Genesis 1:26-27

So… hear me out… God of all the universe creates the entire universe, makes man and woman in God’s own image & likeness, and makes them male and female. Meaning, they both bore God’s image and likeness right? Right?

So why is it that other members of society have been relegated to inferior status if they too bear the image and likeness of God? Why are we so sure that God is one who only possesses masculine qualities when it was written in the Word that God also made woman in God’s image and likeness, meaning God has feminine qualities too? What’s so bad about it? What’s bad about knowing that God is both “masculine” and “feminine?” And… even so, why does it even matter? Why is it such a need to see God as a big, strong man…?

God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and in truth.

John 4:24

Lemme blow your mind a little more right here. I mean, if I think long and hard about it… a spirit doesn’t have a physical body, right? So how would God be a man or a woman? Why would God be bound by such banalities? If I think about it more, the way people look so different to each other, 7 billion plus people (I’m not even counting the ones who died) all reflected God’s image and likeness. You cannot pin down God’s image & likeness because we are all God’s image and likeness. When you look at someone, you are witnessing a facet of God. That’s how huge God is, that’s how multi-faceted God is.

These are my musings and I don’t want to put in prescriptions, but I believe that we need to repent. No, I don’t mean “God I’m sorry.” No, we actually need to change our thinking. Thinking we could pin down God and make God into our own image according to our limited view, is absolute hogwash. Our thinking and our biases paint an imperfect picture of a perfect God. Once we realise that God created us all (like every single person) in God’s image and likeness, then we can be free of trying to make God who we think God is and actually worship God for who God truly is.