Starry Night

I was recently sitting in a restaurant that had dozens of children’s artwork hanging on the walls. Some of them were significantly better than I could ever have done. One of them in particular stood out to me. It was an 8^th grader named Michael’s best attempt at a replica of Vincent Van Gough’s Starry Night. While I recognized what it was supposed to be, the painting was clearly not a replica. This particular painting was not famous or valuable or legendary. It was merely a boy’s best attempt to replicate what some would call the perfect painting.

Despite our endless attempts to imitate Jesus and his life on earth, we are always going to fail. We will never be able to create such a masterpiece of a life as Jesus did. Jesus was perfection and we are not. No matter how hard we try, our lives will never be an exact replica of Jesus. No matter how hard Michael tried, his painting could never be an exact replica of Van Gough’s. 

Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” We are all created in the image of God. We are little people walking around on earth that resemble the Creator of the universe. Yet no matter how hard we try, we will not be able to replicate His image perfectly. The best we can do is to imitate the person and character of Jesus.

While we will never be able to mold ourselves into flawless masterpieces, we ought to be living in such a way that when people look at us, they can tell what and whom we are imitating. I could tell by looking at Michael’s painting that it was an imitation of Starry Night. I can also tell by looking at people what and whom they are imitating. As Christians, we ought to be living and making ourselves into people that, though we are not perfect replicas, are imitators of Christ. If someone hung your life on a wall, would they be able to look at it and say, “That person’s life was spent imitating Jesus?”