In Their Likeness

Several years ago, I sat on a familiar Saturday flight from Amsterdam to Houston, returning from a business trip. I usually worked on my laptop the morning of the 11 hour flight and then enjoyed a movie over lunch, before an afternoon nap to help adjust back to my timezone. The movie ended before I finished my lunch.  After the  credits scrolled by, my screen went blank. I continued eating. Then I glanced up and there on the blank screen was the image of my mother's mouth chewing her food, in my reflection.  Wow! I guess we do all become our mothers, don’t we?!

My mom had died the year I turned forty. And the older I got, the more I recognized her in my expressions and mannerisms. We had a good relationship and I admired her. So even though I wasn’t trying to be like her, I was ok that I was taking on her likeness in small subtle ways. It was natural, because I inherited her likeness. I have her great skin. I’m missing ear lobes that she also lacked.. I sigh the same. I laugh the same. I can be too critical, like her.. I roll my eyes like her. And I sing the same lullaby to  my grandbaby as she sang to hers. I’m more than ok with taking on her likeness as I get older.

I have another parent whose likeness I’m chasing. My heavenly Father’s. I think David felt this way when he said:

As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness. Psalm 17:15 [ESV]

I know I won't have His complete likeness until I meet Him face to face. But sometimes His character just pops out when His Spirit lives out loud in me. He, who has no imperfections, covers my imperfections with His grace. Being like Him isn’t something I can do through my own efforts, but through His power. I’m His daughter, so His likeness just shows up sometimes to show off His name. But other times, I feel so unlike Him. Because He is so righteous – so full of rightness. And my humanity is so full of wrongness. 

When I was growing up we sang an old hymn that said ‘To be like Jesus, to be like Jesus; On earth I long to be like Him.’ As a girl, I sang this with the thought that I just had to try harder, to be better, to put forth enough effort to be as good as Him.

Now I realize that when I put my faith in Him, He began a new work in me. As I received His Spirit, He began renewing me in His image.

and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. [Colossians 3:10]

I can never be good enough by myself, but I am being changed – transformed – into His image, His likeness, His reflection.  

Let me grow and change and age into their likeness. Mamma’s and the Lord’s.