For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. – James 1:23-24
I am bald! Oh, there are selective amounts of hair on my head in certain locations, but, as many men of my age, I am basically bald. I have become reconciled to this fact of life, and am happy to say that my wife loves me anyway. However, etched in my mind is the shock of becoming aware of the way things were going. At age twenty-two, after completing college, I was inducted into the armed forces. One of my first experiences there was a very short military hair cut. Looking into the mirror after that, I could see what my full head of hair had hidden: significant areas on the front of my scalp which had no roots. The balding process had begun.
Gradually, over a period of time, my hair situation progressed. And here is a funny thing: looking each day straight into the mirror as I shaved or combed my hair, it seemed to me that I still had a pretty full head of hair. Like my dad before me, I have a reasonable amount on the sides and enough on the top so that from certain angles it does not look too bad. Then one day I saw a picture of myself taken from behind. What was that shiny area on the back of my head?
Of course, the point of this is not about hair or a lack thereof. After all, many bald people have gone on to live useful and productive lives. The point is that it is easy not to see ourselves as we really are. Even looking into the mirror, we can still fool ourselves.
Spiritually speaking, it is essential to see our needs. Unless we are aware of our weak points, we are unlikely to do anything about them. Yet God wants to work with us. He wants to see growth in our lives.
If we have not yet received our deeper experiences, God is anxious for us to press in and receive them. But whatever our spiritual state, God has more for us. He wants us to look into His Word and apply it to our lives. He knows that not only will we be happier as we go forward with Him, but we will be more useful in His service as well.
In 2 Peter, after Peter considers the spiritual attributes God wants us to add to our lives, he adds these words: “For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 1:8). Today, may we take a long look into God’s mirror, the Bible, and then act in a positive way upon what we see.