I was remembering back when our 2 year old pup had just come home. She would run to the mirror and growl and bark. Not only did she not know who was in the mirror, she didn’t like who was in the mirror. For weeks she would run around the corner and stop in her tracks as she got a glimpse of herself, and again start barking and growling as she became belligerent to the “face in the mirror”.
…..eventually she stopped looking in the mirror and would avoid it at all cost.

I am much the same. When I was spiritually younger, I would look in the mirror as spoken of in James 1 “like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.” Not only avoiding the mirror of God’s word and His son, but eventually I stopped letting God refine and point out those scary, ugly weaknesses…
I became offended by them, but not to the point of change, but to the point of avoidance.

I have such a good, loving heavenly Father, that if I agree to sit down with Him and let Him provide the mirror… He will show me what He wants to change, grow, refine, redeem, restore and make beautiful.
BUT I have to be willing to look with Him. The lovely part of how He does that is… He doesn’t let me stand there alone as I look, He is right beside me wanting to help me and offer a solution to what we see together. He does this “mirror looking” to heal me, not to shame or condemn me. In His word I am assured in Romans 8 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”
If I ever hear my heart telling me He wants to condemn me by “mirror looking”, it just is not truth.

The first part of that verse in James says “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”

To think I can actually deceive myself if all I do is just listen to God’s word and know what it says, but I never do anything about it…. I can believe just to know more about His word makes me more into His image and disregard being a do’er of His word. It is like my pup who not only didn’t like what she saw, but eventually avoided looking all together. The mirror became too much confrontation for her lil puppy heart….

Oh Lord, as painful as it can be, continue to take me to the mirror of your word and show me what you see. May I keep growing to be a doer of your word not just a distant looker of your word…..