“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the animals, all the earth and the creatures that crawl on the earth.” ~Genesis 1.26

My husband and I have not been living in our new apartment a month and already there has been an earthquake and a hurricane. I dare not ask, “What next?” Today afforded us an opportunity to learn something new (insert sarcasm). We learned how to go about our daily tasks without electricity thanks to Hurricane Irene. It was a poor attempt on my part and I opted to go back to sleep, hoping that the electricity would have returned after a nap.

But, not before hearing this truth: “We are not images of color but images of God. We are not made in the image of color but in the image of God.” The statement was simple enough, so simple that it could very easily be forgotten or dismissed as seemingly minuscule in importance. How often I have thought and behaved as if a representative of color instead of a representative for God? It mattered more what persons thought of me as a ‘black’ person than as a Christian. I wanted to remain true to my ‘race’ even if it cast doubt on my convictions as a Christian. I had often taken the side of race, questioning the very character of God when my faith was tested by a racialized incident.

But, who made me first? The creation narrative recorded in the book of Genesis would seem to suggest that God did, creating me and setting forth a plan for my life before my parents conceived me, before culture shaped me or society categorized me. Race is not my beginning. I was not born ‘black.’ And if God made me first then, race is attempting to make me over.

Is race then attempting to improve upon the creation of God, adding to the creation narrative this social coloring of humanity’s skin? Is not race suggesting that the order of God needs the categories provided by race, that we were also created to rule over each other? But, there is no mention of such domination in God’s instructions before the Fall. We are but to rule over the animals not each other.

The more I write about race, the more I realize that its positions are not compatible with Scripture. I am thankful for this morning’s reminder and pray that you, too, would choose each day to represent the image of the One who created you and not color.