Have you ever listened to Steven Curtis Chapman’s song, “Fingerprints of God”? I mean have you stopped what you’re doing, closed your eyes, and just listened to the lyrics? The chorus goes:
I can see the fingerprints of God
When I look at you
I can see the fingerprints of God
And I know it’s true
You’re a masterpiece
That all creation quietly applauds
And you’re covered with
The fingerprints of God
*Photo found on Pinterest
I don’t remember the first time I heard this song, but I do recall the time period when the words started penetrating my brain and the message behind them left me pondering what that looked like in my life. What did having His fingerprints on me mean? I was around 12 or 13 at the time and what caught my attention was the first verse of the song:
I can see the tears filling your eyes
And I know where they’re coming from
They’re coming from a heart that’s broken in two
By what you don’t see
The person in the mirror
Doesn’t look like the magazine
Oh, but when I look at you it’s clear to me that…
As a preteen girl, these lyrics really struck me because of the truth in them. I don’t have a memory of a time that I literally cried because I didn’t look like the models in magazines, but I did grow up feeling insecure and somehow less than other girls, always feeling like I came up short in the arena of comparisons.
Hearing these lyrics really got me thinking about what God’s fingerprint may look like on me. I grew up hearing verses like Genesis 1:27 where we’re shown how “God created mankind in His own image” and Psalm 139:14 that says we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”. Combining my knowledge of these verses and Mr. Chapman’s song together led me down a bunny trail of thoughts that culminated in the final destination of this:
If God is my Father, what part of Him did I inherit?
Did I get His eyes, will people know I’m His daughter by this feature? Did I get His sense of humor (you know He has one, Friends. I mean, just look at the platypus!)? Did I get His mannerisms, the way I talk with my hands or constantly shift my feet? Do I walk like Him, talk like Him, resemble Him?
In my young girl mind, being someone’s child meant the child had to have some recognizable characteristic of the parents' in them. Why did I think this was the way it goes? Because I’ve been told my whole life how much I look like my momma. People who don’t even know me know I’m her daughter because of how I look. I simply smile and they know who I belong to. People who haven’t seen her in years have come to our home and mistaken me for her when I answer the door.
*Momma and I with my beautiful niece :)
For some girls this may be torture, always hearing how much they resemble their mother. That wasn’t the case for me though. I’ve always received it as an extreme compliment when someone tells me how much I look like Momma. People travel the world, traipsing across the globe in search of ultimate beauty, some sight that will make their hearts sigh from it’s magnificence. I’ve only ever needed to gaze upon my mother to see that. She’s more perfect to me than a Tony Stromberg photograph. Looking like her is a trait I treasure.
So my younger self wanted to know, what trait(s) of His did I get?
Now my (only slightly) older self wants to know, what trait(s) of His do I embody?
Is it my eyes, do I see others the way He does? Is it my sense of humor, am I able to laugh at things rather than making mountains out of molehills? Is it in my smile that my Father becomes recognizable? Do I maybe walk like Him? Do I talk like Him? Do I love like Him?
How am I known as my Father’s Daughter?
The innocent bunny trail pondering of my brain when I was younger led to a change in my life, a shift in my thinking. I grew from never really giving it much thought if people knew I was a Christian to wanting people to know Whom I belong to, Whose child I am.
*Photo found on Pinterest
I want to be a mirror that reflects my Abba’s image to a world in desperate need of seeing Him. With everything that’s happening in this world, it’s so very apparent that people are longing for Love but they’re distracted by culture’s cheap imitation of it. They’re investing in something so temporary, when there’s a far more permanent and eternal Love just waiting for them.
It’s a Love I know, a Love I have inside of me to share. If you’re a follower of Christ, it's a Love you have too.
The course we're called to as His children is this: to stop worrying about self-image and instead focus on being Christ’s image. We need to be Jesus with skin on.
*Photo found on Pinterest
While writing this post I kept saying to God, "I have no idea where this is going. This is not at all what I had planned..." It seemed too random to me, like my brain's just going from one thing to another instead of staying on a straight writing path. Then I realized that is a perfect way for this post to go, because it's a bunny trail of thoughts that started this whole thing in the first place.
It's amazing what sorts of things God can reveal to you and teach you when you embark upon adventures along mental bunny trails...
