Like Dirt or Not

A professor once told us, quoting a saint, that we were more like dirt than God - or something to that effect. At the time, I took it to mean that we have so far to go before we are able to love as God wants us to love. In my mind, a scale was instantly drawn: Dirt at the bottom with zero ability to love - God at the top with a lazy 8 next to his name, meaning his ability to love is infinite - and me in between the two right around the number 4. Yup - that's me closer to dirt than to God.

Sometime later (much much later) the question came: If we are more like dirt than we are like God, what does it mean to be made in his image? I thought, maybe we are more like God than we realize otherwise the "image" part doesn't make much sense. We are made in God's image by the very fact that we can love - unlike dirt. Dirt has not loved, does not love, and will never love. We have, we do, and we will love; even if that love comes out at a four on the scale, it's still something that is God-like and makes us infinitely closer to God than dirt can ever be. What's more, one day our love scale will skyrocket. Our soul will grow in capacity and it will be able to soak up the love of God to the point that love will be our whole existence.

That's where the birth of Christ - the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ - grabs your heart. Because of Christ, because the Word became flesh, the floodgates of God's love was opened and took humanity from a .00001 on the likeness scale to a four, or a 10, or a 200. Christ's human heart brought, not only Isaiah's prophesies, but Ezekiel's prophesy of God's desire to take our heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh, to fruition. This new heart enabled us to absorb the love of God. This is one way the Emmanuel remains with us.

So, I'd say yes in some ways we are more like dirt than we are like God but, in the end, I trust God when he says we are made in his image and he promises to be with us. I take these things to mean, no matter how far we may think we are from God, we are really more like him than we are like dirt and for that we have great reason to rejoice.

And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 11:19)