The Mirror

 

When the Mirror Speaks

After my last post, I found myself looking in the mirror once again. This is what I saw.

I will step out when the time is right. As I said in a previous post, I will obey and trust. I connected that thought to faith, but is faith not really an extension of who we are once we are saved? I think that is an obvious conclusion.

The more I reflect on my life, the more the words of our beloved brother James hit home:

“Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
James 2:17

That is such a direct and uncompromising statement.

And as I say those words, our beloved brother, another thought confronts me.

Would he say the same thing about me?

Would he look at my life and recognise the same living faith he wrote about, or would he see the gap that so easily opens between what we profess and how we actually live?

But how can we deny that faith must be a true reflection of who we are in all areas of our lives?

I have yet to find a true Christian who lives without intent, that God-given awareness that presses on the heart and cannot be ignored. Yet outsiders measure something else entirely. They measure movement.

Are we walking in the light, or are we continually retreating into the shadows? God forbid that we become content with such a lifestyle.

One of the greatest traps for the babe in Christ, and sadly sometimes even for those who should know better by now, is the quiet settling of the heart that says, enough is enough, a place where we stop short of what God is calling us to.

I know that I am not exempt from that position in certain areas of my life.

Enough talk. It is time for action.

Consider the account in the Book of Numbers, when twelve spies were sent to scout the Promised Land. Ten returned with a fearful conclusion:

“We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
Numbers 13:33

The giants were real. The fortified cities were real. Their observations were accurate.

But Caleb saw the same reality through faith:

“Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”
Numbers 13:30

The facts were the same. The difference was in faith.

If I bring that thought into my life, I must face my reality.

I am a white male, sixty years old, living in South Africa, where finding work at this stage of life can feel almost impossible. That is simply the reality of the circumstances around me, shaped by the complex legacy of Apartheid and everything that followed it.

Those are the giants in the land who stand before me.

But the question is not whether the giants exist. Scripture never denied their existence. The question is what conclusion I will draw from the reality I see.

Will I say, I cannot?

Or will I say, God is able?

Then we read about Gideon in the Book of Judges. When the angel of the Lord appeared to him, Gideon was hiding while threshing wheat.

Yet the Lord addressed him with these words:

“The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
Judges 6:12

Later, God reduced Gideon’s army from thirty-two thousand men to three hundred so that Israel would know the victory belonged to Him.

“The Lord said to Gideon, ‘With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands.’”
Judges 7:7

When God moves, He often removes every possible place where man could claim the glory. He strips away the numbers, the strength, and the logic we naturally rely on. What remains defies human reasoning yet leaves no doubt about who deserves the glory.

Again, the circumstances were real. The enemies were real.

But faith moves differently.

Faith is not something that exists outside of who we are. It is an extension of who we are. Yet in the end, we must come to rest on one of two guiding posts that direct our lives:

Intent,
or movement.

What I love about the Word of God is the way Jesus Christ speaks directly into our situations. The same account can confront hundreds of different circumstances in different people’s lives, yet when it reaches your heart, it feels as if it is speaking only to you.

Fascinating, the brilliance of God.

Bless His name now and forevermore.

Amen.

Signing off,
Tyrone