Article March 27, 2000 Issue

See yourself in a new light

You've got all the good qualities you need to succeed.

Steven A. Salt

TELEVISION COMMERCIALS CALL out: "Feeling worn out and rundown? Tired of the same old you? Try . . ." You could complete that sentence with a variety of products—a new hair color, mouthwash, diet supplement, breakfast cereal, and so forth. All of these claims to making a better "you" assume that you're missing something essential. But is that the case? Consider for a moment that you are already complete and whole, here and now.

Complete? Whole? Me? Absolutely! As God's children, we all are. No one can be missing any Godlike quality. Sounds radical, doesn't it? But if you check out the Bible, you'll discover numerous "radical" references to our present spiritual perfection as God's offspring. From the creation of man in the image of God in Genesis (see 1:26–28) to the declaration of our permanent status as sons and daughters of God in the New Testament writings, the Bible points continually to our goodness as well as our dominion. This is our only true nature, because we are created in the likeness of our Maker.

By degrees, we can see this perfection not only in ourselves but in others if we acknowledge God as our true source of existence. When we see an honest person, we are actually seeing God's integrity expressed. By the same token, if we get angry at someone who cuts us off in traffic, we're accepting the fact that someone whom God created can lack patience, intelligence, and judgment. But, in fact, that's not so. Yes, we may each need to do a better job of using and expressing what God gives us. But it's true that we do have everything that God bestows on each of us. In trying times, when it seems as though life has become pretty ungodlike, prayer can help us turn our thought away from such a viewpoint, and instead see the ever–present qualities of the man and woman God has created. The Psalmist puts it this way: "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace" (Ps. 37:37).

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