Dignity

One of the things I have been convicted about lately is how little I think about the dignity that all human beings were given at creation.  Created in the image of God is something that rolls off our lips so easily and yet I have been convicted that I have limited its meaning.  I tend to think of this as only having to do with moral reasoning or creativity or whatever.
What about seeing our  being created in the image of God as glory? Every one of us was made to reflect and to a degree share the glory of our creator.  The tragedy of sin is that it robs us of that glory and yes, we are complicit in that robbery.  I tend to see the wreck and not the intention of God.  Someone said that we are ruins, but noble ruins. I major on ruin, not noble.
The Incarnation is God taking what was robbed from us and Him,  back.  Jesus enters the world as a human being and as such begins the divine project of restoring the dignity that our creator intended. Simply by coming as a man, Jesus demonstrates what God in creation intended.  It is no accident that Paul calls him the second Adam.  Jesus redeems the wreck by living with dignity.  We see this not only in the cross, but also in how He treated people.  He treated everyone He met with dignity, from drunks and prostitutes, to lepers, to Scribes and Pharisees, to His own family, to the poor and destitute, to Samaritans, to widows, to little children, to fools.   
I want to begin to see my enemies, the people I despise, the people I love as dignified, not as problems to be managed, or simply corrected  but once glorious beings that Jesus can restore.
I am new to this and I am not sure how to do it, but at least pray that today as I encounter people, I would treat them with the dignity Jesus intended and is bringing about.