Where Are You Looking?

Many years ago, I went to a funfair where there was a ‘Hall of Mirrors.’ Around the walls were mirrors that, at a casual glance, looked the same, but each one gave you a different image of yourself. None gave a true reflection. One made you look as if you had an extremely long neck and everything else was squashed together, another made you very short with a huge protruding stomach, the next made your body all wiggly sideways. I’m sure you get the idea. Of course, the mirrors were intended to give a false image, because it was just for fun, and we did all laugh.

If I’d grown up seeing myself every day as one of these strange reflections, I wonder how I would think I really looked. What would my self-image be?

We know from Scripture that God made us in His image, so in a very real sense He is our true image maker. He is a sort of mirror for us to see ourselves as we truly are. God alone is a true mirror, and it’s not just our outward self we see, not just a surface reflection but our true, full personhood that He reflects back to us.

But what if, over the years, we have experienced something similar to looking in distorted mirrors? Without realising it, could we have been seeing a false image of ourselves? The truth is that when we relate to other people, especially those close to us, it is as if in their attitudes, words, and behaviour towards us we see something of who we are, or rather seem to be, reflected. But what they reflect back is distorted by their own wounding and sinfulness. They aren’t true mirrors. They are distorted and can give us a false image of our self.

Today many people are asking, “Who am I?” and seek to find themselves, and discover the truth of who they are through demanding freedom. It is freedom to indulge their desires, to seek within themselves their own identity, and to rebel against anything that seems to limit their right to do whatever they want to. But they are looking for their true image in the wrong place. In trying to connect with their inner being they are seeking truth in a distorted mirror. So they only discover a distorted reflection, a reflection offered by their carnal nature.

Whatever the world says, you will only discover who you really were created to be in one way. You find your true identity by knowing Father God and allowing your human spirit to connect with the Holy Spirit. That is the place of your true personhood, your true self-image. He will bring the necessary revelation and you can discover your true God-created self.

‘For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him’ (1 Corinthians 2:11).

‘The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God’ (Romans 8:15).