Human beings have a love hate relationship with power. We love it when we or someone we like has it, and we hate it when someone we don’t like has it. I think J.R.R Tolkien described humanity's relationship to power well in his “Lord of the Rings” series. The characters were all drawn to the ring of power, imagining how they could use it to save life. Yet the power they sought to use for life became a means for death.

So, what does it mean for human beings to be made in the image of God? Does this statement imply the active role of striving to live as representatives of the God we serve? Having authority from him to carry out his will? Or does it suggest a passive role where humans are the conduit through which we display our love and affection for God?

It is worth mourning that, what was in not what is. Yet we are called to participate with God in turning what is, into what will be. Many of us are struggling with the reality that the culture which we grew up in no longer holds the same values that once felt unanimous. Many of us are feeling threatened by the competing world views that are now in the public sphere. And many of us feel a longing for things to return to the normalcy that we consider the “good old days”

What other God in history has so associated himself with the poor and lowly? From his birth in a stable with a feeding trough for a bed (Luke 2), to his proclamation that if you have cared for a person who lacks food you have cared for him (Matthew 25). No other God who is held out as being so great has ever associated themselves so strongly with those who are so lowly.

The kingdom of God, like the Garden of Eden, is supposed to spread over the whole earth by means of us. So look around you, in your city, your neighborhood, your family. Look and see those areas that need redeeming, and start living the good life.

Our call as followers of Christ is to rely upon the Lord, living with hands that are open to receive blessings on God's time and to bless those around us. His blessings, love, and favor are not meant only to come to us, but they are meant to come through us to others.

He was the King during the golden age of the unified kingdom of Israel. He expanded the kingdom back to its former glory. He was wiser than any man alive. He was richer than any man alive. He was the greatest lover his kingdom had ever known. He was a ruler, a philosopher, and a poet. He was Plato's ideal King. All of these things make King Solomon a mythical figure in our imaginations.