In God’s Image

This is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

“Way to clear the goal, Omar!” As Jon’s teammate booted the soccer ball down the field and away from our goalie, I sighed in relief. I smiled softly as two languages—English and Somali—filled the sidelines where we collectively cheered on our middle schoolers. Our two coaches, one fluent in Somali, strode up and down our side of the field, pulling players aside shoulder to shoulder as they leaned close with advice.

I’m on the constant hunt for opportunities to build community across cultures, and I’d stumbled upon this one with our middle school soccer league. In my eyes, the teamwork skills Jon learned on a culturally diverse team was the true win, regardless of games won and lost.

Echo chambers are dangerously easy to slip into with social media algorithms and cable news pundits. We will find ourselves surrounded almost entirely by people with similar backgrounds unless we intentionally choose a different path.

Aaron and I love people from Ireland, Kenya, Iraq, China, Taiwan, Somalia, Afghanistan, and beyond. Our friends’ willingness to share parts of their culture and perspective has been one of the greatest blessings of our lives. We’ve repeatedly discovered—firsthand—that our wildly different friends are created in God’s image, just as we are.

We can unintentionally adopt and perpetuate harmful stereotypes and assumptions about those “not from here” or “from here but not like us.” The best way to sift fact from fiction is to draw near, share meals, and most importantly, listen carefully when someone feels safe enough to share about challenging circumstances, even if what they’ve walked through is different than your interactions or experience.

God loves the world, and he doesn’t play favorites. Jesus is the sacrificial lamb for every last one of us if we’ll accept him. As news stories and quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. trend, let’s recognize that our fellow image-bearers of God may have struggled in ways we have not, and those struggles may be more recent than we’d care to admit. We can love God with our whole, thankful hearts and acknowledge when the church has fallen short, determined to do better going forward.

Julie

Today’s Act of Gratitude

As you hear the difficult stories of others, prayerfully ask God to break your heart for what breaks his, asking him what he might call you to do about it.