Let's Bust a Recap : In His Image

Way back in June of 2021, I read Jen Wilkin's None Like Him which was originally published in 2016. I had been hearing only good things about Jen Wilkin, and her work lived up to the hype. I immediately slated her 2018 follow-up In His Image for my 2022 book list and ended up reading it last September.

Yes, that's right. We still have books hanging out in the To Be Blogged stack from last year. The struggle is real. Since we talked about Lysa TerKeurst's book on Monday, I decided this would be Christian Non-Fiction Week on the blog, and we'd try to clear out that genre from the stack. 

If TerKeurst's book typifies everything I'm trying to avoid when picking up Christian non-fiction, then Wilkin's books epitomize everything I'm looking for when I turn to this genre. 

In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character is the counterpart to None Like Him in that, while None Like Him focuses on ten attributes of God that He alone possesses, In His Image focuses on ten attributes of God we were created to demonstrate in our own lives. Those ten attributes are holiness, love, justice, goodness, mercy, grace, faithfulness, patience, truth, and wisdom. Once again, covering all ten of these attributes in a mere 153 pages seems like an impossible—maybe even laughable?—undertaking, but again, Wilkin never claims to plumb the depths of these traits. In fact, no one could ever plumb these depths. However, in that accessible—but not condescending—language that I so appreciated about None Like Him, Wilkin challenges the reader to consider these divine character traits and how those traits have or have not been reflected in the reader's life. 

And wow, what a challenge. In her introduction, Wilkin claims to answer the question of God's will for our lives. No small claim. But she explores something that often gets overlooked in modern-day Christendom. That the will of God has less to do with what we do, and everything to do with who we are. Wilkin's thesis is that as Christians, we're asking the wrong question. Instead of asking God what He wants us to do, we ought to be asking Him who we should be. This reinforced the teaching I have sat under my whole life at home and in church. (Ah, the joys of having a father who was also my pastor.) That I can know God's will for my life. And what is that will? That I be holy, loving, just, good, merciful, gracious, faithful, patient, truthful, and wise. In short, that I will be daily conformed to the image of Christ. While a lot of times in life we'd like a skywriter to spell out a simple "yes" or "no" to should I do this or not, the true work of sanctification, the true will of God is in my becoming more like Him, in reflecting His divine image to a world in desperate need of Him. 

Because of the very nature of these two books by Jen Wilkin, I found In His Image to be more practically applicable than None Like Him, and I think because of that, I felt like I got more out of In His Image. But that in no way diminishes the benefit of reading None Like Him. Both bear revisiting due to the fact that it is my life's goal to keep the attributes of God and how they affect me and effect change in me ever at the forefront of my mind. In her conclusion to In His Image, Wilkin states, "Everything we say or do will either illuminate or obscure the character of God. Sanctification is the process of joyfully growing luminous." Oh that each day I would grow more luminous.