Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

—Genesis 1:26-27

My sweet husband isn’t always the best at surprising me for one simple reason. He gets too excited about the gift he’s giving me. Sometimes he’ll end up giving me the gift early, but sometimes he’s just too excited to hold it in, and he’ll give me hints that often make it easy to figure out.

I absolutely love this about my sweetheart! I love that he gets that excited about being generous through his gift giving. It’s plum adorable! But every now and again, he does manage to surprise me. (And to be fair, he has gotten better at it over the years.)

One of the biggest surprises came on Easter Sunday of 2021. He had driven up from a town two hours away to go to Easter service with me, and afterward we had gone to my house to relax a bit before he had to drive home. After a while, he acted like he was going to the bathroom. So when I heard him call me, I thought he needed me to fetch some toilet paper.

When I turned the corner to walk to the bathroom, what I beheld was not someone in need of toilet paper. It was my very own sweetheart down on one knee, holding a beautiful diamond ring.

In a deeper way than I’d ever known before, I’d been chosen. A good man who loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me chose me. Given all my soul-deep flaws, it seemed like a miracle that someone as kind, generous, and patient as my husband chose me.

In some ways, I still think that being chosen is a miracle. It has to be a miracle considering how horribly flawed and sinful we can be. And for the next few weeks, we’re going to look at some of those miracles.

When God Said Yes to Making Us in His Image

When we talk about miracles, we’re talking about something only God could achieve, something only He could bring about or do. If we stick to this definition and remember that God made these decisions while knowing in ultimate detail all the ways we would abuse the privileges afforded us because of those decisions, it suddenly begins to look incredibly miraculous for God to choose the things He did.

The first of these decisions comes in the very beginning. In Genesis 1, God decides to make us in His image. He chooses to make us image bearers of the Almighty God.

There’s a lot that came out of that decision. Way more than I think any person could ever really understand. But here are a few things that did come from this wonderful gift.

Four Gifts We Received When God Made Us in His Image

God gave us the gift of creativity. We are able to imagine and create new solutions to problems, new ways to create beauty, and even new worlds. I explore this concept in more detail in my book Practicing Swordplay: Intentionally Combating the Lies of the Enemy. At least to me, it’s one of the most exciting gifts God gave us through this decision

God also gave us the ability to know and understand Him in a way that animals can’t. Certainly, animals instinctively recognize and worship God, but we get to have a deeper understanding of His love for us. He chose us to be His family.

As humans, we get the unique gift of being able to choose whether or not to accept the relationship God offers us. There is nothing else in all of creation that gets to look at God and say, “No.” But we can.

God also gave us authority when He made us in His image. He gave us the authority to rule over the rest of creation and steward it well.

Why God Choosing Us Is Miraculous

And here’s the miraculous part. Even before God began to inhale to make the declaration that He’d chosen to give us these gifts, He knew what we would do with them. He knew we would create evil things, choose to ignore Him and reject Him, and misuse and abuse the things we should have stewarded. And He still chose us.

We’ve all experienced times when we wanted to be chosen and weren’t. It’s both hurtful and sometimes confusing. But the good news is, when no one else could have or would have chosen us, considering our flaws and our mistakes, God miraculously still did.