My Quiet Wonder About Being Human

I found myself thinking about something the Creator says about human beings, that He takes pleasure in us. And honestly, that thought wouldn’t leave me alone. It made me ask myself: What could be so interesting about humans that God would enjoy watching us?

At first, the question felt strange. But then I looked around me.

Look at the things we live with every day. Houses. Roads. Cars. Phones. Medicines. Technologies that didn’t exist a few decades ago. Systems that organize how we work and communicate. Even the clothes on our backs and the tools in our hands. None of these things arrived fully formed. Every single one of them started as an idea in someone’s mind.

That realization humbled me.

Somebody once looked at a problem or even just imagined a possibility and thought, What if this could exist? Then they learned. They struggled. They experimented. They disciplined themselves. Slowly, something abstract took shape in the physical world. A thought became a thing.

Philosopher Hannah Arendt (1958) described humans as homo faber, the makers of the world. Unlike other creatures, we don’t only live in nature; we reshape it. We design tools, build structures, and create systems that outlive us. Historian Yuval Noah Harari (2014) adds that what truly separates humans from other species is our ability to imagine things that are not yet real and then cooperate to make them real.

That ability feels almost supernatural when you think about it.

From a faith perspective, this makes sense. God is the Creator, so it follows that creativity in human beings reflects something of His nature. Theologian N. T. Wright (2010) suggests that humans were made not simply to exist but to participate meaningfully in the world through responsibility, imagination, and action. In other words, we don’t just occupy the earth; we shape it.

What strikes me most is the process behind creation. Behind every invention is discipline. Behind every visible structure is invisible effort. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1996) reminds us that creativity is not just inspiration; it is the interaction between imagination, knowledge, and sustained work. Ideas are fragile on their own. It is persistence that gives them weight and form.

And that is where my awe comes from.

To be human is to carry ideas inside your mind that do not yet exist outside your body and then to slowly, painfully, beautifully bring them into reality. We gather knowledge. We turn thoughts into words. We turn words into plans. We turn plans into physical things. That movement from the unseen to the seen is power.

So when I think about why God might take pleasure in humanity, I no longer imagine it as passive observation. I imagine a Creator who delights in watching beings who can learn, imagine, and transform their world. Not because we are flawless, but because we are capable.

This reflection leaves me with a simple message I keep returning to: Never compare yourself with another. Never overlook anyone. Never underestimate what you are capable of.

With a clear desire, the right tools through knowledge, and the discipline to work, what lives only in your imagination can take physical form. Everything around us that feels normal today was once an abstract idea in someone’s mind.

And that is why I stand in awe.

I stand in awe when I think about all the things humans have created, things that were first born in imagination and then shaped through hard, patient processes into reality. I stand in awe not just of what we make, but of what we are.

I am genuinely fascinated by being human.