Many young adult believers have a common question: Why did God create me? A lot of us want to keep God near enough to save us but stay far enough away to let us do what we want to do. However, the Bible doesn’t begin with Adam, it begins with God (“In the beginning, God . . .” (Gen. 1:1)). God is the author, the painter and the creator in this story – in every person’s story. Then, why did He create us? “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’ . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:26–27).
He made us in his image, in his likeness – to look like him. Why does someone make anything in someone else’s image – a painting, a sculpture, an Instagram? Why do we create things that image or look like others – our parents, our best friends, our favourite athletes or artists? Because we want to see them, and we want others to see them. Why did God make you? The shortest answer is that we were meant to show others a bit of who God is, to share and display the love we’ve experienced with him. We are representatives of God in the world, ruling the world as a steward in God’s stead. Thus, an exalted status is given to humanity which contrasted many Mesopotamian traditions. In such texts, the created world serves the needs of the gods and treated as slaves or servants to them. We’re seven billion Instagrams of God. We live for God and his glory. We don’t make God glorious or add any glory to him. As John Piper says, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”