“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” (Ephesians 2:10)
Source: the Mad Equation
Photo Credit: paint and brushes! 🙂 – a gallery on Flickr www.flickr.com
Month: August 2016
Water Reflections
God’s Word—the Bible, is a mirror. In it, we see how far we’ve fallen away from the standard of perfect love. But the mirror is not what cleanses us. Instead, it leads us to the water.
Source: the Mirror Speaks
Photo Credit: Free stock photo of clouds, cloudy, river www.pexels.com
The Mirror Speaks
Sometimes I wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and say, “What happened?” It’s like disaster struck as I slept, wreaking havoc on my face and turning my hair into a tangled mess. My reflection doesn’t hesitate to talk back. “You got some work to do, sweetheart.”
It reminds me of a story my husband told me. Back when he was a teen, he and his cohorts decided to decorate a friend’s face with marker as he slept. Once they completed their masterpiece, they woke their friend and drove off to the local fast food joint. Met with unusual stares and amused glances, the friend made his way to the restroom. The whole place fell silent as a terrified scream filled the air. He had seen his reflection. And it wasn’t funny. At least, not to him.
Mirrors have a way of revealing our blind spots. In them, we see what’s out of place and what might need some fixing up. As for my husband’s friend, the mirror showed him a face that needed a good washing.
In my blog post The Get Up Call, I talked about how current events expose just how messed up our world is, and just how much we as individuals need change. News headlines have become like a mirror, revealing how desperately our hearts need transformation. In a world rife with violence, racism, terrorism, and more, we’re awakened to the reality of our need for change.
Now, when the guy with the markered-up face saw his reflection, do you think he tried to use the mirror to clean his face? Um, no. He went straight for the water. Only water has the power to make us clean.
God’s Word—the Bible, is a mirror. In it, we see how far we’ve fallen away from the standard of perfect love. But the mirror is not what cleanses us. Instead, it leads us to the water.
The mirror speaks. In this crazy world, we need a rescuer. Jesus came to be that rescuer, and he is the water that makes us clean.
Awakening
Get Out of Bed!
The problem is, we’re awake, but we’re still in bed. We’re awake, but we’re not getting up. We’re aware that our world is in turmoil, but we’re still comfy under the covers. We’ve responded to the wake up call, but we haven’t heard the get up call just yet. Waking up involves opening our eyes and ears. But we still haven’t moved from a position of comfort. Getting up requires action. It requires moving our feet and stepping away from our place of comfort and into the realm of movement.
Source: The Get Up Call
Photo Credit: File:Trento-Mercatino dei Gaudenti-alarm clocks.jpg – Wikimedia
The Get Up Call
I used to love the snooze button. It was my early morning friend, allowing me a few extra minutes to enjoy the comfort of a warm bed before launching into a busy day. My daughter helped break my snooze-button habit for a short while. As a baby, she was up all hours of the night and morning. It was a glorious day when she finally learned to sleep past five. After that, mornings were blissful.
Until my son came along. He’s the enhanced model of the “Alarm Clock No Snooze” system. With him, there’s no in between. In a matter of seconds, he shifts from deep sleep to extreme awake. And once he’s up, I have no choice but to get up with him or there’s no telling what he’ll get into.
As for my daughter, she’s now progressed to where she claims to be “allergic of” getting up. To make things easier, I try to sing her awake. She opens her eyes. She smiles, she giggles. But still, she’s under the covers, comfy and on the verge of returning to dreamland. She’s awake, but she’s not up.
Observing my kids’ morning habits makes me realize a deeper reality. There’s a difference between waking up and getting up.
We hear about school shootings, terrorism, gang violence, racist acts, and more on a daily basis. The increasing amount of disturbing news has served as a wake up call to multitudes. Something’s wrong, and something needs to change. If we don’t deal with the root of the issues before us, things will only get worse.
The problem is, we’re awake, but we’re still in bed. We’re awake, but we’re not getting up. We’re aware that our world is in turmoil, but we’re still comfy under the covers. We’ve responded to the wake up call, but we haven’t heard the get up call just yet. It’s quite possible we’ve become “allergic of” getting up.
Waking up involves opening our eyes and ears. But we still haven’t moved from a position of comfort. Getting up requires action. It requires moving our feet and stepping away from our place of comfort and into the realm of movement.
We’ve come to the point in our lives when it’s not enough to wake up anymore. It’s time to get up. It’s time to do something. And that something begins with change, and the change begins with us.
What’s one of the first things we do when we get up? We look in the mirror. We see what needs to change, and we change it. In this case, the change begins in our hearts once we finally hear the get up call.
This Life & Beyond 
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