But now, here’s Thomas Merton’s thoughts on trees and being made in God’s image:
A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying him. It ‘consents’, so to speak, to his creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree. The more a tree is like itself, the more it is like him. If it tried to be something else which it was never intended to be, it would be less like God and therefore it would give him less glory. (as quoted in “Seven Days of Solitude”, by Brother Ramon SSF, Hodder & Stoughton, 2000).
I liked that because its about being who God intends you to be – about me being who God intends me to be.
How can I know who God intends me to be? Partly by recognising who I am and what I am like, how I ‘operate’, and by allowing my life to be connected to Jesus’ life and allowing his life to affect and shape and re-shape my life, so that I bear more fully his image in me.
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