A Distorted Reflection of Ourselves

 James 1:22-24 “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.” 

      When I was younger we would go to the amusement park in the nearby town on occasion. I loved going on all the rides and seeing how many times we could get through the roller coaster line before my parents had to convince my brother and I that we couldn’t stay there forever. The exit from the best roller coaster went through a mirror room that had all sorts of different types of mirrors that distorted our reflection in some way. They would make our head look huge and body small, or look short and round or tall and skinny, and one would even make your body disappear so it looked like your head was floating….weird!
      I would imagine that if someone spent all of their time in that room every day and never looked in a regular mirror, they might begin to have a distorted perception of what they really look like.
      Day to day life can be similar to the mirror room at the amusement park. Our interactions, experiences, successes, and failures can reflect images back to us that aren’t necessarily consistent with the true one we find in Christ. It can distort our perception of who we are, what our worth is, and what we look like. Our sense of identity, purpose, and values can start to be formed by looking into the outside influences and successes and failures of the day. 
      The only way to find consistency through the ups and downs and numerous influences is by looking intently into the word of God each day finding our identity in Christ, as we have been made a new creation in Him (2 Corinthians 5:17).
      So let us daily look intently into the mirror that will provide a true, consistent, stable reflection of our identity and purpose, through daily time with the Lord in the Word and prayer.
      Praise the Lord for what is good, and look to Him and the Word for your identity and purpose and you will be “like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither - whatever they do prospers.” (Psalm 1:3).