An icon painter knows that while painting his or her hand is directed by the person being portrayed. "Icon" means "image".  If it is the goal of our Christian life to become an image of Christ, in my present form and way, then someone must shape this image.  What we ourselves can do has already been said many times: look meditatively at Christ again and again so that his image impresses itself deeper and deeper on us(see "importance of pondering").  Next to that is another practice of equal value.  Seek to live as Jesus lived, seek to do as he did.  Even with all of this we still remain at the beginning.  The most authentic, the most important work, must be done by God alone.   God does this as the Sculptor who already sees the finished work in the block of stone.  Blow by blow God removes what does not belong to the image until it stands finished before the Sculptor.  Our primary task in order to let ourselves be shaped more and more by the image of Christ is to accept what God takes from me or denies me because it distorts or conceals this image.  Therefore, we must consciously offer ourselves again and again to the Sculptor just as the clay is offered to the potter who shapes it.   Yet, the best image of Christ in a person will only be visible under a veil and only discernible enough so that when God wills, the eyes of others can be opened to what the Sculptor has discovered under the veil of this image.  "He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not." (Isaiah 53:3). Until God opened their eyes that was the way - Christ was seen by the people.

- John 14:9 (Whoever has seen me has seen the Father!") with Colossians 1:15 ("He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation;") and Romans 8:29 ("For those whom he [God] fore knew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren [sisters]")

Allow a series of images to pass by inwardly like a slide show in which Jesus Christ presents himself to the people as the image of the Father...:

• With which of these images do you want to identify yourself so that God can become visible  for other people?. .
• In which of these images could people who know you well recognize you most clearly? ...
• Which of the images could God have meant or imagined for your life? ...

(For example, it could be that you have wished to be like Christ who withdrew to pray  night after night, whereas, God wants to become visible in you as the one who helps and  serves other people.)