Mirrors (or "Sunday's Leftovers")

Each week Spaghettipie does a "Monday Morning Leftovers" post in which she recaps a tidbit of Sunday worship that continues to resonate the next day. This is kind of like that since these thoughts springboard from something our pastor spoke about this week.

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was."
- James 1:23-24 (NASB)

What is the reason for a mirror? To see what we look like, of course, but why? So that we can see needs to be fixed and fix it, to evaluate what's not right and change accordingly.

Ellie loves her reflection. She is constantly looking at herself -- in mirrors, yes, but also in windows, TV screens, computer monitors, glass oven doors, even brass doorknobs! I am constantly asking her to look at me when we talk, but she's far more interested in watching her own reactions and facial expressions. Like most of us, she studies her face, her hair, her nails. She always wants to be sure everything is just the way she wants it.

Now, how absurd would it be for her to spend all that time memorizing her every feature to turn around and forget she has curly hair? Or to ask me what color her eyes are because she honestly doesn't know? It's ridiculous!

And yet that is exactly what we do when we go to church and read the Bible only to fail in obeying what we've learned.

Now that's all pretty standard stuff you've heard as long as you've been a believer. But think about this: the longer you go without looking in the mirror, the worse the problems get. Imagine if we only checked our appearance once a week. By Monday we'd have bed-head and morning breath. Tuesday will inspire the new Mach-17 razor. By Wednesday that piece of broccoli would seem permanently embedded in your gums and your coworkers might be asking for additional air fresheners. And your hair? Well, dreads might come back in fashion by Saturday. Come Sunday we'd have a lot of work to do.

How often do you look in the mirror of God's Word? We check ourselves out several times a day in bathroom mirrors, but how much time do we spend reading the Bible? We can all say we don't have time; we can all find reasons not to make time. But the longer go between looking, the bigger the problems become. Our selfishness snowballs into greed and covetous behavior while can catapult us into all kinds of despicable acts.

However, if we spend time each day evaluating who we are in Christ and what He requires of us, then our damage control is much more efficient. Instead of repelling others, we can attract them to the Truth.