The day after the big snow, I looked around the park, and counted no less than seven snowmen, along with two snow forts and several half-finished sculptures. In the next few days, I drove past many yards with snowmen: tall ones, short ones, fat ones, even a family of snow people with a father, a mother and two children.
What drives us to build people out of snow? It isn’t just the fun of it, or the desire to be creative, or we’d see all kinds of fantastic snow structures, the kind you see in the festivals of ice-bound countries, places like Norway and Sweden and Finland.
We build people because we long for community. We want a connection to others. We desire love. In this, we take after God, who created us in his own image, for his own pleasure, to enjoy our company.
The Bible says that “Long before [God] laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!)” (Eph. 1:4–6, MSG). If you enjoy building snowmen, think how God enjoyed creating you!
King David marveled at the thought. He wrote: “You formed me in my mother’s womb… God—you’re breathtaking! …You know me inside and out… you know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something.” (Ps. 139:13–15, MSG)
Why did God create you? He wanted you to love. Isn’t that awesome?
So then: “Watch what God does, and… do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.” (Eph. 5:1–2, MSG)
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