An Imperfect Imitation

Where I am, she is.  What I do, she does.  What I wear, she wants to wear. 

She studies me.  She literally sits at my feet as I go about my work of getting ready or grading a paper or fixing supper.  She wants to be with me and soak me in. 

And she imitates me.

But sometimes the results are less than perfect.

Jesus said to His followers, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:8).

He commended Mary for sitting at his feet and listening to what He said (Luke10:38-42).  She was drinking in His words and knowing the Father through Him.

God asks us to do the same -- to look at His Son, the image of the invisible God, and know Him.  He gives us Jesus, and says, "Know Me."  We can study Him, sitting at His feet each day through the Word, through prayer, through music . . . and drink Him in.

And then we are asked as we get to know Him, to imitate Him.  "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Ephesians 5:1). 

He knows our results will often be less than perfect -- that the mascara might wind up all over our face when we were aiming for the eye.  He knows that we may say the wrong words, do the wrong things, love less than we should. 

But He also knows with practice, we will look more and more like Christ, the exact representation of God, and we will be able to say as Paul did, "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ" (1 Corinthians 11:1).

And as we imitate Christ, others just might see Jesus and get to know our Father.

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An Imperfect Imitation