And the word became...you.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 12:31PM There was more than one incarnation. Jesus wasn't the first word that God made flesh. There were many before him, and many since. He was simply the fullest, unhindered and truest incarnation of God's speaking.
God creates by speaking: Power goes out, creativity happens. When God wants to get something done, he speaks. Whatever it is -- an orchid, a zebra, a person -- he voices it and something is formed.
You, too, are a spoken incarnation, a living word (small "w," of course). As Robert Benson suggests in his book, The Echo Within - Finding Your True Calling, there is an incarnate word that has been spoken into you from day one. And that incarnate word is unique to you. (Your new heart is at the center of your unique identity.) Since God had something specific in mind that his world needed, he voiced that specific thing into you: "Now I will give the world what it needs through the incarnate word, "your name here".
When God works in a person, he does it in them, as them. You express something God wants to say, but he does so as you, not simply in you. He is making his ongoing incarnation personal. There is nothing generic about it. As God uniquely and supremely made a statement in the fleshed-out Word, Jesus, so he continues to make a statement in you, as you. You are the new fleshed-out word.