Faces

By Julian Newman
        

My oldest daughter came downstairs after getting dressed for school, preparing her breakfast to start the day. I stopped what I was doing and watched. Watched as she toasted her bread, opened a box of cereal, etc.

For these few moments, I was mesmerized.

I was taken aback because of all the cool things she could do. Thinking back to when she was a little baby, I recalled her first day on earth. Looking at her now, a full 14 years later I was…speechless. Not only was she smart, talented, and amazing, but she was also…beautiful.

She looked just like her mother this morning, hair swept in a thick braid twisting down her neck to slender shoulders. She walked just like her mom this morning, gliding across the kitchen floor with unusual grace. In many ways, my 12 year-old princess has become a younger version of my wife. Her face is so much like her face. It held me in spellbound awe. It made me think of the genesis of our earliest beginnings.

You and I come from God. We were created in His image, and carry shades of His likeness. Sadly because of the Fall of Man, this connection can be difficult to see. Because of sin’s presence, human nature is fragmented and schizophrenic. Like Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, where the principle character routinely manifested both horror and beauty; as human beings we are prone to a similar duplicity.

Deep in the human heart’s core there is a battle being waged. Between light and dark, good and evil, heaven and hell. A war. A conflict. Over image. Likeness. Genetics. Blueprints. Natures. For faces.

As in, whose likeness will we allow ourselves to be fashioned in? The One who designed us, or the Devil that comes to pervert what God created? Will we be children of light, or the offspring of darkness? Will we put on His face? Or his face? Every day this battle is waged. On the basis of how we choose, how we act, and how we live, will determine whose image we will ultimately reflect.

Today…what face will be your face?

Scripture Of The Day: “So God created man in his own image, 
in the image of God he created him; 
male and female he created them.”
 -Genesis 1:27

Julian Newman is a husband, father, writer, artist and storyteller who serves as Lead Pastor of Renaissance Church in the greater Sacramento region. He has passion for creativity, innovation, leadership, outreach and evangelism, mentoring, the arts, reading and teaching the bible. Find him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/JulianNewman…