The name of this blog, FaithEdTech, is intentional. For me, faith in Jesus Christ as my eternal Savior comes first. He has called me to share Him through the vocation of education, and he has blessed me with an interest and aptitude for using technology to do just this. It is for these reasons that I entitled this blog in such a manner.

While my faith is the foundation for all I do, I rarely place faith at the forefront of a post. Today, I will make an exception.

As with most of you, I have watched with both horror and sadness over the events of the past week — the deadly treatment of a man by officers of the Minneapolis police department that led to a life being lost and the subsequent violence in our nation’s cities. There have been, rightly, many calls for deep societal upheaval in how we view and treat one another in light of these events and other similar instances over many years. Calls for justice. Calls for systemic societal change. Calls for peace. Calls for action.

I have a call to propose as well, one that has been on my heart more intensely over the past seven days, but also one on which I reflect every time I read the book of Genesis. This call is for all of us (myself included) to ask for God’s help in seeing each other as we truly are, and then act according to this foundation.

Who are we? Genesis 1:27 provides the answer:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

EVERY time we encounter another person we see God’s grace, His love, His creativity, and His glory. We view someone who God planned and intentionally placed in our world. We look at someone who is inherently worthy of respect and love, not because they are perfect, but because of who their Creator is.

Sadly, we live in a fallen world where these features are obscured by sin. It is so easy for us to forget that we all are created in God’s image. To me, it is clear that this failure directly leads to events such as those we have experienced during the past week, and many others like this. We become antagonistic, belligerent, and hateful when this simple truth is suppressed, forgotten, or ignored.

Justice, systemic societal change, peace, and action are all essential tasks for living out our God-given misson of serving individuals and our communities. But this cannot fully be done without reflecting upon the truth of Genesis 1:27 and living in the light of this truth. In these troubled days, but really always, I challenge us to embrace the call to honor all those created in the image of God through a faith-filled pattern of living. Let’s all be Genesis 1:27 people! May God send his Holy Spirit on us all so that we may fully love Him and fully love our neighbor.