Tag Archives: faith

The One Reason You Deserve Massive Respect

Imagine you take your car or truck to a mechanic, and just as you walk out, you notice something. On the floor is a towel with one of your favorite pictures of yourself on it. But people are not respecting it. They walk right across your likeness over and over, wiping their shoes on it as they go. Then you notice more. The cashier has begun cleaning the desk with another towel bearing the same photo, wiping up grease and spilled coffee. She sees the angst on your face and dismisses your concern with, “Oh, we go through a lot of those, about a thousand every three months. This place stays a mess. We always keep a bunch of boxes in the back.”

You would likely find that behavior rather offensive. It’s not because of the inherent value of the cloths, though. It’s because of whose image is on it.

Similarly, you and I and all humans deserve tremendous respect for one reason only – we bear God’s image. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). We have his photo printed on us, so to speak.

To say it a different way, everything good about you is part of God that He put on display through you. Creativity, love of music, healing the sick, and being organized are a few things that were present in God first, which he maybe now puts on display through you. That is precisely why you have those characteristics. We might say he created you so he could tell the world, “This is an example of what I am like.” Other good traits about Him – and you – may include being scientific, a good leader, a good listener, or a nature lover. He loves animals. He loves babies and little kids. He likes strength. Loyalty and honesty in friendship are high priority for him, and love is of utmost importance.

That is exactly why you deserve to be treated with dignity, and it means so many things for you. It’s ok for you to stand up for yourself (e.g., “Treat me with dignity or we can’t be close”), or even to leave an abusive relationship. Abuse is never how his image – you – deserves to be treated. Even if someone dislikes you, they still owe you dignity. Nobody gets to say or act like you are worthless or ‘less than’ or an unwanted mistake. Those are lies, because God and God alone has the right to define you, no one else. After all, he made you in his image, with his photo printed on you. We aren’t equal with God, but he did fashion us to portray him in many ways.

It’s ok for you to have an opinion because you matter. When someone cuts you down for feeling upset, excited, or any other feeling, they have made a grave mistake. That’s because God’s image deserves never to be insulted or invalidated. You reflect God’s nature by the good things in you, so nobody gets to tell you your feelings are stupid. Not all emotions are healthy to hold onto, and many should never be acted upon. But, you have the right to feel what you feel. Even your emotions are part of God sharing with the world a sample of what he is like, because he had emotions first. They’re part of Who He Is.

He wept, John 11:35.

He grieved, Luke 19:41-44.

He got angry over injustice and hypocrisy, Luke 11:37-52.

He felt joy, John 15:11.

He had compassion, Mark 6:34.

Everything good about you is God showing the world, “This is what I am like.” And that is why you deserve massive respect.

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You may also enjoy Boundaries as an Act of Worship in Three Paragraphs, https://freespiritseedcompany.com/2023/03/19/boundaries-as-an-act-of-worship-in-three-paragraphs/,

and Everything Good About You is Part of God that He Put on Display Through You, https://freespiritseedcompany.com/2025/02/11/everything-good-about-you-is-part-of-god-that-he-put-on-display-through-you/

Something about Tenderness in the Sun

If your image of God is that he is cruel, psycho, or hateful, I want to share something a little bit science-y with you.

I painted this on my basement wall. It shows the size of the Sun and Earth, to scale. The Earth is the dot the arrow is pointing at. It is the size of a quarter (I traced around one). The Sun, as you can see, is taller than my door, stretches higher than the ceiling and lower than the floor.

Earth would actually be three football fields away. Try to imagine standing in your doorway (like the one above) with a friend holding out a quarter from that far away. How small would it seem?

Yet the gravity of the Sun is so vast it can hold onto that quarter-sized planet from such a distance.

In fact, it’s so big you could fit one million Earths inside the Sun and still have extra room for them to jiggle around.

In the Bible, Jesus is compared with the Sun (Malachi 4:2, Revelation 1:16).

The size of the Sun compared to Earth is something like the size of Jesus compared to you and me. That would also be the size of his tenderness.

Notice the words tender and comfort in these verses.

“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned.” Isaiah 40:1-2a

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4a

And finally, Luke 1:78 speaks of “the tender mercy of our God.” Not just mercy, but tender mercy.

If we imagine God as a tyrant, like an alcoholic father, we have missed something important. Sure, he has some rules like any good leader. But if, for the past ten or twenty years God has mainly seemed angry, maybe take the next couple decades pondering his tenderness. Then things may seem more in balance.