Morning Meditation: We are Imago Dei

Dear God of Fire and Tenderness,

This morning I woke up carrying the weight of a divided world — headlines screaming, neighbors suspicious of neighbors, and my own heart tempted to sort people into categories of worthy and unworthy. Then Your Word cut through the noise like a trumpet blast: "The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt" (Leviticus 19:34).

Lord, You didn't say tolerate the stranger. You said love them — with the same fierce, covenant love You poured out when You led Your people through the Red Sea on dry ground. You remind us that we were once the outsiders, the ones with dirt under our fingernails and no place to call home. And You welcomed us anyway.

Holy Spirit, open my eyes today to see Your fingerprint on every face I encounter — the woman bagging my groceries whose accent marks her as far from home, the coworker whose politics make my jaw tighten, the child on the evening news whose name I cannot pronounce but whose tears I recognize as my own. Each one stamped with the Imago Dei, the very image of the Living God. Each one a walking cathedral where Your glory dwells.