Created in His Image - Beginning a New Year

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness. . ."
~ Genesis 1:26

"the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."
~ Genesis 2:7

Today I read the creation story in Genesis. These verses stood out to me. I also read the following excerpt from a book I just started. I thought it was very fitting for the first day of a new year.

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From the Prologue of Escape to Freedom,
Book 3 of the Secret of the Rose series by Michael Phillips

In man did the Creator, the Almighty I AM, raise the holy creative act to its very pinnacle, calling into life a being apart from himself that yet reflected his divine nature. Here was a being says his Word, created in the image of God himself, who yet was also given that ascendant capacity, distinct from all the rest of creation, called free will - the power to choose whether to walk in that image so intrinsic to his making.

Ah, God our Father, does such intimacy truly exist between us and thee, that we may lay claim to such hallowed origins? Have we truly - incredible thought! - been created in thy very image! Expand our minds, open our hearts to absorb the lofty and life-changing truth, that in thee we can discover all that a perfectly loving Fatherhood was meant to be!

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The above passage got me to thinking - We each were endowed with free will, we each make our own choices. Blame can be cast nowhere else but in our own laps. What is my choice in the new year?

I choose to follow the Father, to walk in the image He created me in. To pursue that relationship with the Father for which I was created.