Shine your spoon

What if you couldn’t see the people you love face to face?

What if the only image you could see of them was a distorted reflection like you would see in a spoon or another shiny piece of metal. What would you do?

If you couldn’t see your loved ones face to face, wouldn’t you work as hard a possible, day by day, moment by moment, to get the best possible vision or reflection we could? Wouldn't you be spending hours on end shining that spoon so the reflection improved?

In her book Living Love, author Jill Briscoe says that people in Paul’s day didn’t have glass mirrors. They only had pieces of highly polished bronze or copper. When they looked in it, they saw an imperfect reflection.

Imagine the Apostle Paul carrying a small pocket-sized piece of bronze as a mirror – whenever he looked into it, he saw a poor reflection of himself. Paul probably never really knew what he looked like! No wonder he used this parallel to talk about seeing God.

1 Corinthians 13:12 – Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.

We won’t get a face to face look at God until we finally reach heaven, but we can work on shining our spoon each moment, each day to get a clearer reflection of His person and character.

Would you rather see your loved ones in the fuzzy, distorted reflection in a spoon or in the clear, correct image of a modern mirror?

No question! The mirror! Why? Because you want to memorize every feature of your loved one - you want to know each freckle and dimple and see the way each and every eyelash lays on your loved one's face. Your great love for them gives you an unquenchable desire to learn and know more and more about them.

The same is true in our relationship with God - we can choose to continue to see our Savior through a distorted reflection, or we can shine our spoon, so that each time we look at Him, our view of him becomes clearer and clearer.

So - how are you going to shine your spoon today?

Reading His words, praying and talking to like-minded friend are all wonderful approaches (and the likely responses one would get in a Sunday School class). And they are activities and spiritual disciplines we should all be involved in on a daily basis anyway.

I encourage you to think a little bit deeper - what can you do today to see your Redeemer more clearly today? - how can you get a sharper image of who He is and what He does?

I'd love to hear your shining tricks!

Until next time - RevPhil