Nothing to Something

This is a poem I wrote reflecting on the original purpose vs. the present reality of what it means to be truly Human. And in particular, I had these lyrics from How Deep the Father's Love running through my mind:

I will not boast in anything,
No gifts, no power, no wisdom;
But I will boast in Jesus Christ,
His death and resurrection.

I make no claim to be even a fraction as eloquent as this song's writer nor the many hymnists and psalmists through history. But the image in my head contrasting an original human value, our broken disvalue, Christ's sacrificial emptying, and then our restored value, seemed to flow out better in a poetic form here rather than prose:

We were made to be something.
   Images of the author and keeper of the cosmos.
   Stewards and caretakers of life, beauty, and culture.
   Human. Good. Very good.

But we were born as nothing.
   Broken by the failures of our parents, of their parents.
   We carry the curse onward from the first generation.
   Selfish. Foolish. Wretched.

We thought we could make ourselves something.
   We achieved wisdom, wit, willpower... And war.
   We nurtured love, loyalty, leadership... And lies.
   Peace, prosperity, patience... Pain.

And we could never balance the scales.
   It was the keeper's alone whose good we reflected.
   And our hearts' alone whose evil we spilled.
   Progress. Regress. Hopeless.

But the author wrote themselves into the story.
   Goodness itself clashed with the evil of our wars.
   Truth itself carried the weight of our lies.
   Light: The deepest, darkest pain.

The source of all things became nothing.
   Full of majesty, yet becoming empty.
   Judge above all, yet bearing our sentence.
   Giver of life: gave their life.

So that we could become the something we were made to be.