Mirror, Mirror On the Wall…

“’Woe to me!’ I cried.  ‘I am ruined!  For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.’”  Isaiah 6:5

“My ears had heard of You but now my eyes have seen You.  Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”  Job 42:5-6

Several years ago in an orphanage in Ukraine, I discovered something shocking about the lives of the precious children living there: Most of them had no idea what they looked like. 

This discovery came while team members were playing with the kids, and one lady pulled a mirror from her bag. Immediately she was swarmed by dirty little hands grabbing and clawing for a turn to look. As I wondered what all the commotion was (“It’s just a mirror,” I thought) the translator explained that there were no mirrors in the orphanage. No mirrors. No reflections. No children making silly faces at themselves. 

For many living there, this was the first time they had gotten a realistic picture of themselves. Perhaps they thought they had brown hair and discovered it was really blonde. I watched as they discovered the color of their own eyes and the shape of their own smile. It was something I will never forget.

Mirrors do not lie, do they? At times we all wish they would; but they simply reflect what is there. One thing mirrors cannot do, however, is reflect what is below the surface.  There is a saying, “Beauty is only skin deep.” From the perspective of a mirror, this is true.

But did you know there is a mirror for the soul? There is a way to get a true and accurate reflection of the heart. A clear vision of God will always result in a clear vision of self. If you search the Bible, you will find that when people came face to face with the holiness of God, it resulted in humble repentance. This happened with Job, Isaiah, Jonah, David, Paul, the list goes on and on. 

If we are unable or unwilling to see God clearly, we are just like those orphans with no mirrors. We are unable to see our own reflections. We remain oblivious to our sin. We live with incorrect ideas about who we are and why we are here. How foolish it is to look into mirrors that will only reflect the outside, but refuse to look into our Father who is the only one who can reveal what matters most – our hearts.

Heavenly Father, thank You for seeing to the depths of who I am and loving me anyway.  Please help me to see You in all Your glory, so that I will see my own sin and repent. In Jesus’ name, amen.