From Imago Dei to Missio Dei: 1 of 3
A Need for Self-Awareness in Global Cooperation
We live in a world that is shifting so fast that without a life anchor and compass, it can be a perilous journey. What is our life's anchor and compass? As followers of Jesus, "the unshakable Kingdom and the unchanging Person"1 He is the anchor and compass. What else do we need, you may ask? I believe we need us (and God needs us), us as in True Self. We are not mere instruments or cogs in God's system. He has chosen to transform us and work through us. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, exhorts in his fine book, Falling Upward,
I believe that God gives us our soul, our deepest identity, our True Self, our unique blueprint, at our own "immaculate conception." Our unique little bit of heaven is installed by the Manufacturer within the product, at the beginning! We are given a span of years to discover it, to choose it, and to live our own destiny to the full. . . Our soul's discovery is utterly crucial, momentous, and of pressing importance for each of us and for the world.
Did you catch that "our soul's discovery is of pressing importance for each of us and for the world?"
Who are we anyways?
At the risk of sounding too simplistic: without self-awareness, there is no global cooperation. Global cooperation without self-awareness is a pipe dream and thus will get us nowhere. Global cooperation assumes that we all have something to contribute based on who we are as God's image bearers. We are all "fearfully and wonderfully made," the very reminder of God's creative work in each of our lives.
There is a saying, "we are human beings, not human doings." What ultimately defines who we are is not what we do or what we accomplish. What we do as a natural outflow of who we are will matter significantly more than what we merely do apart from who we really are. Isn't this what Jesus drilled into the minds and hearts of His followers? He was after their heart transformation, not surface level action or merely behavior changes.
