Then God said, “Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” 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
When we started this series on challenges to the faith, and I asked readers to share topics they would like to have addressed, I received an email which I want to share and comment on.
A barrier to faith that many of my clients encounter is a negative cognition of self, that “I am not worthy,” “I’m too bad to be loved,” and other variations, which are usually an off-shoot of “I’m not good enough.” So they believe that God’s love is big enough for other people, but not for them, because they know how bad they really are, and God can’t possibly love them because of how bad they are. This, of course, sets Jesus up as a liar and puts them as more knowledgeable than Jesus, because they know what is true better than Him (that they are actually too bad for Him to love.) From this perspective, how can you believe in Someone you think is either stupid, a liar, or both? (Please forgive me for being so blunt. I am not at all intending to call Jesus either of those — I am just naming the logical conclusion to a negative and untrue cognition of self that prevents faith and healing.) Indeed, it is a huge barrier to faith, and healing. I could go on about how this relates to our pride and self-hatred, but that’s a much longer email, and you only asked for barriers to faith. So I’ll summarize all this with a simple statement that a deeply held negative cognition of self that “I’m too bad to be loved” (and variants thereof) is a major barrier to faith. Unfortunately, this is quite common in people who have experienced abuse of any flavor in childhood, and/or grew up with conditional love from Mom/Dad/primary caregivers, especially if they made some mistakes of their own along the way. (And haven’t we all??)
Every human being has been created in the image and likeness of God. Sin distorts that image. We all sin, in ways large and small. Thus, our image is distorted in some way. If each of us could be a perfect image of God, then we would not sin against God. If each of us saw other people as a perfect image of God, we would not sin against them. The word that we translate as “image” in English is “eikona” in Greek, which we also translate as “icon.” The icons in our churches are “holy images.” So when God said in Genesis 1:26-27, “Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness,” He was saying “Let us make man as an icon of Ourselves,” and when we read “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him,” we should be reading “So God created man as an icon of Himself, as an icon of God He created him.” Imagine if we took a small icon of Christ and taped it to our forehead, if every person had the same icon taped to their forehead. If we looked at ourselves and saw Christ in us. If we looked at everyone and saw Christ in them. This is the ideal. If we saw Christ in another person, we wouldn’t be cursing at them, or gossiping about them, or cutting them off in traffic, and they wouldn’t do them same to us.
When we were conceived, God put His divine imprint in us, something unique like a fingerprint, but this mark is on our souls. On it is stamped our talents and gifts, our unique path to salvation, and our unique way we can contribute both to the world and to the spreading of the Gospel. That divine imprint is never erased, despite our sins. So if something bad happens to you, or you do something bad of your own volition, while you may think that God has taken His divine imprint off of you, He has not.
In Romans 8:35, St. Paul poses the question “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness or peril or sword?” and by extension, our own sinfulness, or someone’s sinfulness towards us? He proceeds to answer the question in Romans 8:38-39, when he writes “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God.” NOTHING! The love of God is on the table for any of us at any time.
When the priest is offering the incense in the church, he censes all the holy images—the Holy Altar Table, the icons and then the people. Why the people? Because we are all “eikones,”icons of God, holy images. And because we are holy images, we matter, you matter. As the incense is offered at our Divine services, it’s not just the smoke going to heaven along with our prayers, it is an auditory reminder that YOU MATTER! Even when you feel insignificant because of something someone has done to you, or something you have done to yourself.
I often think of the thief on the cross for inspiration and encouragement. His society voted him out of existence. He was no longer worthy, according to them, to live another day. Yes, Christ still found value in him, to the point that He told him, “Truly, I say to you, TODAY, you will be with Me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43) This means that if we are still alive, and haven’t yet taken our last breath, that there is room for God to accept us in His great love and mercy.
For someone who has committed a great sin, go to confession and offer it to God. If God is greater than us, and we believe He has the power to forgive us, then we have to be able to forgive ourselves.
For someone who has been a victim of sin, specifically abuse, which carries sometimes a lifelong impact, please know that it is not your fault, that God loves you, that God will strengthen you, and that you don’t have do go it alone. Seek out both spiritual and professional help, but do not despair when it comes to God’s love.
Lord, today’s prayer is for those who have a hard time accepting Your love and that they have value in Your eyes. For those who have been victims of any kind of abuse, please shower them with Your love, a sense of healing and wholeness, and people who can help them process through and recover from what has happened to them. For those who have fallen through sin, lead them back to You through repentance, and help them know that it is not Your desire that anyone should be trapped in guilt and sin, but that all should be freed from the burden of sin, so that they may live in joy and glorify You without the burden of guilt. In the times when I feel unworthy of Your love, help me to always realize that You love me, and in the times when I have put myself away from You because of my sinfulness, lead me to repentance. Amen.
There is no one “bad enough” that God cannot or does not love!
