Favorite Quotes from Made for More

Whether it’s one of her excellent books, thoughtful twitter threads, or an insightful online essay, Hannah Anderson is always a great read.

In my last post on what it means to be an image-bearer, I referenced her book Made for More: An Invitation to Live in God’s Image. It answers the theological questions about being made in God’s image while helping us to practically live them out. If you’re wanting to learn more on the topic, or if you hear people talk about the imago Dei and have no idea what they mean, I’d recommend starting with her book. Here are a few of my favorite quotes.

“In discovering Him, the source of all existence, you will also discover yourself. In finding Him, you will find the answer to the question ‘Who am I and why am I here?’” (27)

“Because you are made in God’s image, you exist to reflect and represent Him on this earth. Because you are made in God’s image, you are made to proclaim what He is like by doing what He does. Because you are made in God’s image, you are made for glory.” (33)

“While our good is found by displaying His glory, His glory is found by bringing about our good.” (36)

“By doing this, God revealed two fundamental truths about our humanity: (1) both men and women are fully formed, equal image bearers, and (2) we are different from each other and therefore dependent on each other. In other words, while each of us is fully in the image of God, none of us can fully reflect and represent God alone. Instead we reveal the nature of God together, and as a result, we also find identity together.” (37)

“Every time we look for knowledge about ourselves from something other than God, we perpetuate the cycle of self-destruction. As we continue to live divorced from our true identity in God, we lose a sense of who we are; and as we lose a sense of who we are, we continue to live divorced from our true identity. And we end up struggling, grasping, flailing to find something—anything—that will give us a stable sense of self.” (48-49)

“When we turn to other things for knowledge, when we define ourselves by things like our work, our relationships, our giftedness—we create an alternative source of identity. And as we image this false god, our very personhood crystallizes around it. Instead of being fully formed, multidimensional people who radiate the complexity of God’s nature, we become one-dimensional caricatures, as limited and superficial as the thing that we have devoted ourselves to. And we actually begin to resemble it.” (50)

“The paradox of personal identity is that once we accept that we are not what we should be, we are finally in a place to be made what we could be…” (60)

“But faith teaches us that we will never be more truly ourselves then as we are conformed to God’s nature through Christ.” (64)

“As we submit every part of ourselves to Him, as He becomes the unifying element of our identity, we can finally achieve wholeness. We can finally be whole as He is whole. He does not obliterate the details of our lives, but pervades them in order to reconcile the different parts and make peace—in order to make them work together in beautiful coordination for our good and His glory.” (125)

Image borrowed from Covenant Fellowship together blog.