Reflections

At the end of the calendar year, people tend to reflect over the previous 12-months, giving closure to the things that have passed and setting their rudder toward a better, brighter future. And, as I pause to do the obligatory year-end review, I find my heart is stuck on the word “reflection.” Much less concerned with the events of the past year, I stand in quiet awe of my multifaceted God and I wonder how well I am reflecting the One in whose image I am made.

As I try to comprehend the magnitude of the goodness of my indescribable God, I become keenly aware of the severe gap between the person I was created to be and the person that I currently am. In the light of His Glory and Grace, I feel so dim. My heart yearns to be more…to love more…to give more…to serve more. But I’m painfully aware of my shortcomings…impatience, anger, indifference, harsh speech, complacency…the list goes on and on. How can one with propensities toward such stark ugliness dare to look into the mirror of the soul and expect to see God standing there?

My reflection stares back hard…my body covered by so much scar tissue, remnants of the enemy’s brutal attacks. I feel a tinge of shame as I cry out to God, “Lord, as far as You have brought me, how can I still be HERE? I want to be so much more…more like You. I want Your eyes to fill with tears of joy when You look at me, and I want to swell Your heart with pride when You call me Your daughter. But when I look in this soul mirror, I see how much more work there is to be done, and I wonder if I’ll ever be the girl You’ve called me to be.”

And, just like that, God shows me the image of a cloak that is falling from Heaven and wrapping around my shoulders. It is radiant white, soft, and all-consuming. It wraps me up as I stand in front of the full-length mirror and it covers me. It is His Grace…the gift of a covering that I don’t deserve. Radiant-white turns crimson and I am reminded of the royal mantle that is passed on to me through the shedding of the blood. The Prince of Peace passes over me, flows through me, restores me. Choirs of angels sing, “What can wash away my sin? What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood…Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

I was forgiven long ago, from moment I first asked Him into my life; yet I still find myself trying to earn God’s Grace, and He is constantly reminding me I can’t. I will never be worthy of it. I will never be good enough or smart enough or strong enough, and that is what makes Him so Him. He doesn’t make us earn it or deserve it. He wants us just to accept it as His free gift to our undeserving hearts. He knows my tendency to act out from time to time, in my humanness, in this sin-stained world. But I forget that He sees me…and He wants me to see myself…not so much as my actions, but as my heart. And He lifts my face, once again, to remind me, “Daughter, you are wholly acceptable and deserving because you have accepted my Son. I require nothing else.”

And the tears of gratitude flow freely from my eyes. Acceptance. Isn’t that one of the most elusive treasures that we seek to extract from this world? How I struggled for so many years to be known and to be loved for who I really am–faults and all–and here it is…so readily available…so easy to receive that we almost miss it.

But what of these shortcomings? Doesn’t real change always require some effort on our part? Then I found this…The Bible says, as we contemplate the Lord’s Glory, we are being transformed into his image (2 Cor 3:18). The “effort” that is required of us is simply to focus on His Glory and HE does the transforming.

So I suppose, if I were to make any new year resolutions, it would have to be that I will do my best to be more glory-focused, seeking to find Him, hidden in everyday treasures. And, in my awareness of His ever-present mercies that are new every morning and abundantly available all throughout the day, I will be cooperating with Him in my transformation into His image…not all at once, as I’d like to see it done, but His way…from glory to glory.

2 Corinthians 3:18 (NIV)
And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.