Several years ago I had the opportunity to visit one of the most beautiful regions of the U.S known as the Red Rock Hills of the Sedona Canyon. My husband and I had gone for a peaceful drive through this beautiful area also known as a spiritual resting place for many Eastern Mystics.

On our journey we stumbled across a gift shop full of rocks, crystals and other spiritual images. I remember picking up a monkey statue and saying to my husband, “Isn’t it wonderful to know that we are created in the image of God and not a monkey?” Right at that moment the sales clerk leaned around the corner from her office and said, “I don’t know about that. I think it’s pretty good to be created in the image of a monkey!”

Immediately I thought of the phrase, “monkey see, monkey do,” the child’s game many of us played growing up. In other words, a monkey for the most part repeats what it sees. The monkey has limited capabilities and spends most of its time in repetitive, instinctive actions.

Educational systems based on rote memory or simple memorization have historically lagged behind cultures capable of processing information or thinking through complicated issues. You never see a monkey developing a better banana or better way of producing a banana! Monkeys are acting and living as they were centuries ago.

As I listened to this young woman comment on how significant it is to be created in the image of a monkey, I could only think that certainly God did not intend us to act or think like a monkey—He gave us His life and His nature so that we could live a creative, God-kind of life! As humans we cannot and should not except a dignity less than what God has created us for!