Mirror, Mirror: Seeing What You Don’t Want to See

The brothers Grimm wrote a story that became the Disney classic, “Snow White.”

The story features a talking mirror.

Each day, the wicked witch approaches the mirror with a single question. “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”

She gets the answer she wants. She is, of course.

Until….the day when it tells her the truth, someone else, a maiden named Snow White, has taken her place. The queen becomes irate because the mirror doesn’t tell her what she wants to hear.

There’s something strange about mirrors. They only show you what you are, not what you want to see.

We want more cooperative mirrors. We prefer a distorted sideshow mirror to show us thin as we eat the third piece of chocolate cake.

Instead, mirrors turn into critics. A three-way mirror reveals you from all angles…front, side, and back. You don’t like what you see. You find out where the ten pounds you thought you lost went. They are stalking you. And that bald spot your wife tells you about shines like an aging halo in that mirror.

It shows you who you are.

The New Testament writer James says we need to use mirrors well.

James chides his audience on their spiritual perception. They define their faith with professions rather than their actions.

“For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.” (James 1:23–24, ESV)

That’s strange. Yet, examine your own life and you will see tousled hair leaving a mirror undisturbed.

The problem is people who read the Bible and find it difficult to see themselves in its pages. No one admits to being Peter with denial staining his mouth. We’re never the John Mark forsaking hard work. Or Judas whose greed drove him to disloyalty. The words apply, just not to me.

Preachers sometimes “aim” sermons, preaching to a single member in hopes of changing him.

He preaches the sermon that hits the Brother Backslider between the eyes.  A sense of satisfaction crosses his mind.

In the foyer, Brother Backslider says, “That was a great sermon. I only wish Jones was here. He really needed it.”

And the preacher goes off and beats his head against the wall until his ears bleed!

We want to justify their living rather than change their living.

Mirrors only show us who we are, not who we think we are. To see the reflection in mirrors you must shed your pretensions and your defenses. It takes humility to see God’s will. His mirror shows your smudges, sins, motives, and failings in the mirror.

You have to want to see who you are.

Then, the person you are can change. When Jesus says, “Love your enemies,” and you are open that you wrote the ugly words on Facebook you can change it. That smug sense of superiority you harbor against those of a different political persuasion? You can shed it and hear Paul say “Be kind and compassionate and forgiving to one another.” (Ephesians 4:32).

I need mirrors to show me messed up hair, food dripped on a shirt, and a mistaken scowl. I need a spiritual one to see the less-than-noble motives in my soul. It’s only looking in the mirror that allows change.

How can you use God’s mirror?

Face the uncomfortable truth that your life is not as God would have it now. No one’s is. Like a blind man, look to the Bible to take you by the arm and guide you.

Find what applies to you. Don’t apply it to the worst or most vile. On some level, it applies to all. The failure to look for the lesson is the failure of the viewer, not the mirror.

So I pass a mirror and remind myself: that it shows me who I am, not who I think I am.

What do you see when you say, “mirror, mirror?”