As a child, I’d heard the story of Snow White and how the wicked queen would appear before her looking glass and vainly ask, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”
But I never dreamed a simple looking glass would teach me an eternal lesson.
One day, before I knew the Lord personally, I peered into the mirror of God’s Word. I was confronted with every wart in my soul. All I could see was my sinful condition. I was full of anger, resentment, and self-pity. Without Christ in my heart, I was hopelessly lost.
As I took the time to evaluate the pitiful shape I was in, I recognized I was totally depraved and had a self-destructive bent. My fallen condition, coupled with the fact that I was controlled by dark forces, blinded me and held me hostage. I was bound in sin’s prison and unable to discover true peace, joy, and fulfillment. I was stuck in the slimy pit of despair. I’d attempt to climb out but couldn’t help myself.
Then one day God breathed into my dark soul. “Let there be light.”
I knew the time had come for me to move to higher ground.
I felt God’s voice speak to me again. “Will you walk close to me, John? I can help you walk in total victory if you surrender your life completely to Me!”
“Yes, Lord! I surrender.”
The searchlight of the Holy Spirit shone in the dark corners of my heart. The walls I had selfishly erected crumbled at my feet, and His light poured in and through me.
In my mind’s eye, I envisioned a picture of clear glass with the sunlight shining through it. No dark spots, nothing hid from the light, perfectly transparent. The light traveled uninterrupted completely through. Yet the glass was warm to touch because as the light passed through it, heat was absorbed by the glass. And yet the light was not hindered or deflected. Not creating the light, not reflecting light, not blocking light, but allowing the light to shine through uninterrupted and untainted in its golden, heavenly purity.
As His Spirit ministered to my spirit, I was filled with emotion. “This is a perfect example of how a Christian should be a channel of God’s light to this dark world.”
God’s pure light shining through us and illuminating only what God desires to be seen. Not reflecting, as a mirror, back to God what He already has, which is divine knowledge. Not deflecting God’s light through our own will and understanding or blocking out the passage of God’s Light through us, but letting God’s light flow through us freely.
Maybe the following story will make my point clearer to you.
The Little Looking Glass
The looking glass sat on a shelf all alone in a dark and lonely room rarely entered. In gloom and desperation he cried, “I am worthless and hopeless!” The little mirror blinked to keep a tear from falling from his eyes. “I am rusty enough without my tears adding more sorrow to my miserable existence.”
As the grandfather clock struck midnight, the mirror continued his pitiful rant. “I know I’m getting to be quite an antique, but I’m sure I am still quite useful!” He paused briefly and frowned. “Well, there’s not been a reflection of anyone’s face for many years and not much hope of ever being one if I don’t find some way down off of this shelf.”
The looking glass examined his surroundings. He rolled his eyes when he spied the stacks of boxes covered in dust and the dim light bulb swinging to and fro in a mesmerizing way. “I’m getting dizzy looking at that old light bulb.”
A gust of wind whipped through a crack in the old window up front and spun the light bulb about.
I wander where that crack came from, the looking glass thought. I’ve never even noticed that light bulb dangling from the ceiling before. In fact, there has not been light in this room for years, ever since the window was boarded over.
As he sat feeling unused, unneeded, forgotten, and lonely, he whimpered, “Why am I here? What is my purpose?”
Whoooooosh! Suddenly a breeze shot through the room. The gust passed across the face of the little looking glass. In a state of shock, he wobbled from side to side and was hurled through space. “I’m falling!”
Craaaash! Craaaack! The looking glass lay very still on the cold floor. “Oh great! First, I was forgotten up on a shelf and covered with dust, and now I have a huge crack. If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all!”
He lay on the floor and pouted. “Life isn’t fair! What have I ever done to be treated so cruelly?” Tears of self-pity left streaks on the dusty glass as they slid down his face.
Just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse, he tried to move. Panic gripped him. I’ve broken my back!
The one part of him that boosted his self-esteem and gave him a sense of significance was now broken in two.
“Nobody will ever be able to pick me up again!”
The sound of footsteps jolted the looking glass. Someone is coming.
“Anybody home?” The voice of a young boy echoed in the large room. Soon another boy appeared.
The first boy stammered nervously, “I didn’t mean to throw the rock through the window. Really I didn’t!”
“Yeah, but you did!” the other boy shot back. “And now you’re going to be in big trouble with a capital T when Old Man Jones sees this.”
“What are we gonna do?”
“What do you mean ‘we?’ I didn’t throw that rock. You did!” The young man’s eyes widened as he scanned the room. “This building has been shut up for more than twenty years. Nobody comes in here since Old Man Jones’s wife died. I heard my ma say that everything in here belonged to his wife, and he does not have the heart to come in here anymore, even after twenty years.”
“You still haven’t answered my question. What am I going to do?”
“I don’t know. You’ve got yourself into this mess and you’re gonna hafta be the one to get yourself out. I’m outta here.”
A tear trickled down the young lad’s cheeks and fell on the looking glass, lying on the floor. He stared expressionless at it and then suddenly reached out and swept the looking glass up.
“I know what I will do!” he cried as he held the mirror over the crack in the window and laughed in relief. “This looking glass will solve all my problems!” He pressed the looking glass tight against the window, covering the crack. After he quickly wedged it in the broken backing, he ran outside to see his handiwork.
“Perfect fit! The looking glass matches the window perfectly! Old Man Jones never has to know.” With a relieved smirk on his face, the vandal dashed away.
The looking glass opened his eyes and gasped in amazement. “I can’t believe it. I am no longer stuck on a shelf, and I have a great view of the street from here.”
The fact he was being used to cover a little boy’s careless mistake didn’t dampen his momentary joy. “Surely now people will stop and look at me! Reflections will once again fill my face and I will have purpose.”
Month after month the looking glass hung in the window and considered his new position. As the breezes blew across his face, the dust fell off, and a shimmer returned to the mirror. “I’m beginning to feel like my old self again. For the first time in years, I feel I have a future.”
But providence in the life of a looking glass is not always kind, and his joy was dashed even before the sun rose the next morning. The wind beat against the window and the looking glass wobbled back and forth repeatedly until a final blast sent him reeling to the ground below.
“Help! I’m falling. Oh, this can’t be good,” the little looking glass cried as he crashed on a sidewalk below. “I can’t believe this is happening! I finally held a position of purpose after twenty years of waiting—and now this!”
The looking glass was only a piece of glass in a frame. There was no mirror to peer into now.
“I will never be noticed now! I am worthless!”
In utter despair, he closed his eyes and succumbed to silence, his heart as shattered as the glass he once held.
The next morning, hope rose with the dawn. Just as the sun was coming up in the east and the rays of light slowly arched over the nearby buildings, his heart began to fill with hope.
“Maybe . . . just maybe . . . ” His eyes opened with a flash of promise, but then a wave of sickness swept over him when he reminisced about the horrific circumstances that brought him to this pitiful place. “I am useless, just an insignificant piece of someone’s leftover junk for sunlight to penetrate an otherwise dark building. But he did have to admit he enjoyed the feeling of warmth the sunrays made as they slid effortlessly through him. But I still have no purpose.
The sound of footsteps approaching interrupted his thoughts. It’s him. It’s that same boy who threw the rock through the window! What could he want?
The young man tiptoed toward the looking glass shattered on the ground.
“He’s looking at me! He’s looking at me!” But his excitement turned to sorrow. “I have no mirror. He is looking through me, not at me.”
The lad stepped forward and brushed the tears from the broken looking glass’s face. Several more people and the local parson from the country church stopped to see why the little boy was so excited and stood gazing at the weathered looking glass[kb1] .
Parson Scott shouted, “Son, go get Mr. Jones real quick like. He’s got to see this.”
The young fella shook the parson’s hand and galloped to Mr. Jones’s home-place, never fearing what the old man might say about the broken glass. “Mr. Jones, you’ve got to come with me to your old building. There’s something very important I want you to see.”
Mr. Jones took a sip of his morning coffee. “Young man, I have no interest in returning to the painful past. There are some things I wish to forget and not resurrect.”
“I know you’ve had your heart cut right out of your chest, Mr. Jones, but this is nothing short of miraculous. I think it’s a wink from heaven just for you.”
“Oh, I can tell you will give me no peace until I do what you say.” Mr. Jones tossed his napkin on the table. “Now just where is this “God wink” you’re all riled up about?”
The young man hollered over his shoulder, “Follow me and I’ll show you.”
When they arrived, everyone stepped back to let the old man look through what was once his wife’s prized looking glass but now was simply a window into the heart of an old man’s past. Slowly the old man stooped and peered into the little looking glass. A hush fell over everyone standing there. The old man said nothing, but his hands began to shake, and a tear slid down his cheeks. “I can’t believe it!”
As the suns golden sunrays slid effortlessly through the looking glass, it lit upon an object basking it in pure rays of heaven itself. There in the circle of heaven’s golden light lay a sparkling pendant of gold with diamonds and ruby’s surrounding its elegant frame. In the middle of this glory were two young faces beaming in joy as their lips were pressed together. Across the bottom, two words were inscribed in gold—together forever.
Hot tears stung the old man’s eyes. “That’s a picture of me and my wife.”
The parson placed his arm on Mr. Jones’s shoulder. “It seems to me the good Lord wanted to send you a little note from heaven. Your wife is with the Lord, and the Lord is with you. You’re really not that far apart. There’s just a veil between you.”
“Mr. Jones, I have a confession to make.” The young boy inched his way closer and pulled out a few dollars from his pocket. “I accidentally threw a rock through your window and broke it, and I want to pay for the damages.”
The old man eyed the crinkled bills. “I appreciate you telling me, boy. But I think the Lord is trying to get a message across to me today. He has my full attention.”
Peering over his glasses, the parson asked, “And what exactly is the message?”
Mr. Jones stood tall and replied, “We don’t need to see through people. We need to see people through.”
The young lad held up the broken looking glass and said, “Well, this looking glass has taught me a valuable lesson—It is not what people see on the outside of us that matters. It’s what people see in us that really changes lives.
[kb1]I get the picture the boy and looking glass are still in the attic. How did other people see them?
