God is My Creator

God made us. He made each of us different and special; we’re all unique, one of a kind, masterpieces. And He has a plan for us, in fact He has prepared us so that His destiny for us exactly fits with who were are and will be a delight to us (see Ephesians 2:10).

However we often try to recreate ourselves, to present something other than what we are. It’s usually because we think that who we are is not good enough, and that being someone or something else would get us more attention or acceptance. So we seek to change ourselves, to reconstruct our self to fit with our own plans and purposes.

In fact many of us, knowingly or subconsciously, choose to cover something of our true self with a mask. We use our strength of will to determine who we will be and deny our God-given personhood. This is often because we’ve been neglected or devalued, so we seek to cover over what is our true, but wounded, self. We want to hide the painful inner reality, our sinful responses, and what feels chaotic, with our self-made presentation. We want to cover up what we feel is unacceptable, and to present to the world what we have decided is more acceptable. We try to remake our self; we seek to become our own creator.

I’ve noticed that as people get frailer in old age they seem less able to sustain their self-created, presenting persona, and the truth of their inner self shows through. I remember visiting one old lady in a nursing home. All the years I’d known her she was very proper in what she said and did, and always extremely polite, if somewhat distant. But in her latter days, when she was weak in her physical strength and will power, the truth of what was inside began to show. She freely verbalised her anger, her prejudices and her selfishness. The truth of what had been hidden under the polite exterior, the negative attitudes, which we had suspected were hidden inside, were now coming to the surface. It was very sad.

But Psalm 100 tells us we can’t deny that we’re God’s workmanship. We may be wounded, but He’s the Creator and Healer of those He’s made. If we’re trying to solve our problems by recreating ourselves we’re at odds with God’s truth, and this will never be a place of peace. We need to come to Father God just as we are, for His healing and restoration. Then each one of us can find the truth of who He created us to be, and we can live in that truth. ‘It is He who has made us and not we ourselves’.