From the Book of Genesis we learn a basic of our faith: it is in the image of God that you and I were created. What does this mean ... perhaps beyond arms, legs, eyes and that great white beard?
In the letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul proposed a paradigm to help us answer this question: God has blessed us "in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places." What Paul is encouraging the Ephesians as well as each of us to consider is that our lives are "immersed in blessings." In a way we might say that as fish are immersed in water, we are immersed in God's graces, his blessings.
Many today my question whether Paul really "gets it." Each time he was challenged he responded with the following phrases: "Rejoice always." How does the wife feel whose husband has terminal cancer? Paul would respond "In nothing be anxious." Yet, he had a tent making business and friends who made sure he had what he needed. And because of this he would say, "In everything give thanks." And a contemporary might ask which planet Paul lived on. Again, he would respond, "In everything God works for good." Paul, convert that he was, would not yield what he had discovered what he was created to be.
Paul, even during the days of his imprisonment, came to these responses because of a particular belief that we find in the Book of Genesis: "Just as God chose us before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before God in love." The Greek word that eventually became "choose" is composed of two parts: "forth from" and "speak." So, we were spoken forth by God before the foundation of the world.
Paul could such positive spins on his various situations because he honestly believed each of us was "spoken forth" out of the heart of God's love before the creation of our world. This is where you can find the basis for knowing who you are! We are children of God, spoken forth out of the heart of God's love.
