Look in the Mirror
Have you ever really looked in the mirror? I mean, looked really close. You might see a zit on its way in at one spot, and another on its way out at another. As you get older, you will start seeing hair in places that never had hair before, and you may see less hair in some places that used to enjoy being hairy. A few wrinkles will appear over time, and all in all, if we look real close, it tends not to be a very pretty sight. Even super models, when pictured in real life look a little squirrelly over time.
Looking in a mirror can and often is a painful experience. It makes us want to change things about ourselves. To improve what we see in the mirror.
Now I want to imagine that you have a magic mirror. Sort of like the one Bell from Beauty and the Beast had. Not that it would show you what you want, but that it was magic. But our magic mirror would have a very specific kind of magic. It would be so special, because when we would look in this mirror, we would not see our face, but we would see ourselves from God’s perspective.
We would see all the junk we hold onto and love as God sees it, junk. We would see our uniqueness that has shamed us as the beauty God intended it to be. We would see the puss filled sacks of sin in our lives as just that, fetid rotted flesh.
How much time would we spend looking in this mirror? Could we really take it? There are days I get to work, and after using the bathroom at work, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and realize that that is the first time I have looked at myself that day. I somehow managed to shower, dress, brush my teeth, and do all my other morning rituals, and never once glance at myself. Now this is not because I do not want to see myself, it is just that 1. I get up at the butt crack of dawn, so I am still half asleep, and 2. I really do not care all to much about what people think of my appearance.
But let’s pretend for a moment. Let’s pretend that I have a giant golf ball size zit on my cheek. (can you even imagine the pain of that sucker). This baby is huge, and it is a perpetual whitehead. Even if I pop it, it forms a new white head. When I exercise, the zit juice dribbles down my neck and onto my shirt. To make matters worse, it looks like there is a second one beginning to form on my other cheek. My body has turned against me.
After this has gone on for a few months, and my friends have nicknamed me Mt. Pussuvius, how often do you think I would look in the mirror? Each time I would look, I would see a massive puss bubble on the brink of erupting. Nothing I could do to change it, so eventually, I would stop looking. It would not longer matter if my hair was a mess, because who would be looking? Got lettuce in your teeth? Who cares? The eyes are naturally drawn to the gargantuan bubble of puss residing on your cheek.
So when we look at ourselves through the mirror of God, there is no doubt that we will see many of these giant zits. Do we give up and stop looking? The difference between Zit monster and our God mirror, is that God gives us the tools and the grace to begin removing the giant zits from our spiritual faces. It takes time and discipline, but it will work like a spiritual dose of Proactive.
You: BUT WAIT! I must have been in the bathroom when these God mirrors got passed out because I never got one.
Me: Yes you did.
You: No I didn’t! (you even stomped your feet a little at this point.
Me: Yes you did, it is called the Bible. Start in I Corinthians 13. If God is Love, and we are supposed to be like Him, how much of our lives do or do not line up with I Cor 13? That little mirror is enough to keep me busy for the rest of my life. Every day I fall short of this mirror.
Below is a skit by The Skit Guys. It illustrates a bit what I am talking about and goes a little more in depth into God’s view of you. I enjoyed it, and I hope you do to.
