Created

Our identity begins with creation—as do the lies that modern culture tell us about our identity.

We live in a society obsessed with information. Scientists wear blinders and try to stuff the origins of the universe into numbers and data and concepts that fit into finite human comprehension. After all, knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil. But I digress. Scientists, biology classes, "intellectuals," and many others bombard us with theories of chemical reactions and adaptations producing life on earth and therefore there is nothing beyond what "reason" can explain.

This opens up discussion for a wide array of topics, which could quite easily lead to an entirely new blog (a project which I shall leave to someone who is actually good at science… I’m an English nerd, science is not my calling). But here in this blog on our identity, this is the point I’d like to point out. This clip features William Provine, whose ideas are echoed by Richard Dawkins. Both men are evolutionists and avid atheists. Listen to what Provine himself has to say about the implications of evolution.



So basically, the "intellectuals" of today’s culture tell us that we just kind of happened as an accident of chemical reactions and organisms learning better ways to survive, we’re born, hang out on earth for a little bit, and then we die and that’s that. Provine even goes so far as to say that we don’t even have free will while we’re here: everything we do is simply a natural reaction to stimuli. What an empty and pointless existence.

The Bible tells us otherwise. The Bible tells us that we are created in the image of God.

"Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ 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).

We were created in the image of God and given authority over His creation. Beyond that, God did not create us simply by speaking, as He did the rest of creation. No, the Bible tells us that He hand-crafted Adam from the dirt with His bare hands. God did not see Adam alone as complete: man needed woman in order to totally reflect God’s image. So God hand-crafted Eve from Adam’s rib. God put more effort into the creation of mankind than any other thing in the universe.

This isn’t just humanity though, it doesn’t stop there. God didn’t create Adam and Eve, program them with reproductive tendencies, and leave the rest of us to biology. God created me. God created you.

"For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body." (Psalm 139:13-16a).

I was first shown this passage at an Acteens retreat, and the discovery I made that day is still written in black ink in the margin next to that passage in my little blue Bible: "I am not a mistake!" God creates life: Not humans, not accidents, not mindless and undirected biological processes.

I was carefully crafted in my mother’s womb. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I am created in the image of God!