Editorial May 22, 1995 Issue

Me? An expert?

Russ Gerber

In one sense, we all have good reason to think of ourselves as experts. That's because we each have the God-given capacity to be experts at expressing who we uniquely are. After all, each of us has a distinct individuality. And yet, even with something as close to us and as important to us as our own selfhood, most people probably agree there is a lot we need to learn in order to be better at being ourselves in the truest and fullest sense.

The real need, the pressing need, is to become experts at understanding and expressing what God made us to be—what we, in fact, already are—His perfect, individual, immortal likeness. What a powerfully important and transforming concept this is. It's essential to working out our salvation and to benefiting humanity more fully. It not only challenges the ordinary, material views we hold of ourselves; it also opens our thought to the infinite capacities that we have as God's image for being and doing good.

There's enormous value in knowing God and developing the expertise of identifying ourselves as His offspring. Take, for example, the common practice of looking for any physical similarities we may have with our parents. It's understandable that we look for such similarities because we've been educated to think of ourselves as material beings, and as necessarily carrying forward the pattern of material characteristics we've inherited. But what if we set aside those matter-based assumptions and instead explore the idea that we are actually God-made? Wouldn't it follow, then, that we would find very different things about ourselves—qualities of Spirit, not of matter? The result would certainly be spiritual growth and all-around well-being.

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