Mirrors

 The Word of God is a mirror that is honest in its reflection. If you peer into it, you will see yourself as you are, not as you would like to be. Thankfully, the Bible also gives explicit instructions on how to get where you want to be; man just has to apply himself and follow through. Given that most people don’t like being confronted with reality, we’ve invented filters where a bit of pixel magic will shave off fifteen years and make your skin look silky smooth.

We’ve attempted the same with the Bible, from coming up with over 100 versions of it to no longer reading it for ourselves but counting on someone else’s interpretation to tell us what it means. Those are all filters because we can’t handle the truth. Looking in the mirror for ourselves would be too traumatizing, so we allow others to tell us what we look like, and wouldn’t you know it? It’s always flattering and beyond what we envisioned ourselves to look like.

Rather than take steps to improve the things that don’t look right when we look in the mirror of the Word, we’ve decided not to look in the mirror at all anymore. That fixed the problem, didn’t it? It’s like people who feel themselves putting on weight and stop weighing themselves altogether after they pass a certain threshold. If you don’t decrease or change what’s going into your mouth, not weighing yourself isn’t going to make you thinner.

If you don’t like what you see, when you look in the mirror of the Word, not looking into it anymore won’t fix anything. That, however, is the avenue many people choose to pursue because not looking is far easier than trying to change, and since there are people lining up around the block to enable you in your sin, you’ll always find a reassuring voice to insist that it’s not really what the Bible meant, and anyone saying it is, is just a legalist and a prude.

My daughters like stickers. They’re still young enough to enjoy simple things, so I indulge them with batches of stickers from the dollar store, varying from farm animals to emojis, planets, stars, constellations, and everything in between. It’s the dollar store; you can’t be picky, and they don’t much care about the subject matter as long as they’re stickers.

It’s not every day, but some days, I head into the office early. By early, I mean I’m out the door by six and behind my desk a half hour later. Thankfully, since I have no one to impress, I don’t have to dress up, so it’s usually some form of t-shirt and shorts if the weather permits it.

While the girls are still sleeping by the time I leave the house, my wife is usually awake and downstairs, getting ready for the day ahead. Since me and vanity have never been fast friends, if I’m heading out early, I don’t bother with the mirror, and this particular morning had been one of those instances. As I went to kiss my wife and wish her a good morning with the girls, I noticed she was trying to stifle a smile.

We’ve been married for almost a quarter of a century, so by now, much of our communication is nonverbal. All I needed to do was raise my eyebrows for her to say, “Go look in the mirror.”

I did as she asked, and sure enough, there was a lamb, a happy face, and a thumbs-up sticker on my forehead and left cheek. It’s what I get for falling asleep before the girls. Had it not been for my wife, I would have gone out into the world with three stickers on my face, wholly oblivious to why everyone was staring, smirking, or laughing.

Generally speaking, you look in the mirror when you get ready to leave your house and interact with the world at large. Unless you have an evening routine that includes face masks or moisturizers, chances are better than good that you won’t be scrutinizing your appearance in the mirror right before bed. Come the morning, however, whether going to work or just dropping your kids off at school, you’ll throw a glance at a mirror to see if you’re presentable.

You don’t look in the mirror once, then never think of it again; it becomes a daily routine wherein you look at your reflection to assess your appearance. If you look into a mirror every day to determine your physical appearance, why wouldn’t you look in the mirror of God’s Word every day to assess your spiritual appearance?

When we fail to look into the mirror of the Word and go out into the world, chances are that others will notice if there is anything amiss and be quick to point it out. The enemy revels in exposing contradictions in the lives of believers. It doesn’t matter that his minions live lives of such abject debauchery that if ever they were dragged into the light, even the godless would recoil. They’re not the ones claiming to be ambassadors of Christ, are they?

You can tell when someone hasn’t glanced into a mirror or bothered to check if they have Cheetos in their hair. I’ve run into those types of people in the grocery store, and it’s always interesting to see everyone else’s reaction and the individual’s ignorance of why everyone is staring. The godless have similar reactions to supposed Christians doing as they do and acting as they act.

We look in the mirror of the Word daily not to remind ourselves how good we look or how good we are but to keep from bringing shame to the household of faith and the name of God. Even if you’re not going out into the world on a given day, it’s still good practice to look into the Word and see the reflection it presents. If nothing else, it’s a good way of keeping us humble.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.