AI makes it hard to sort things out easily between something that is not real and something that is fake. Long before AI, we could easily be deceived by the promotion of something as real which was merely an an image of that reality. It remains a problem. Too much of what we see, read, and know has it confused. Are we seeing the mirror image or the reality? What is the difference?
So often we forget that there is a difference. Think, for example, of the father in the home. Is the earthly father a mirror of the heavenly or is the heavenly father a mirror of the earthly. Sometimes we get it wrong. Some folks say they have a hard time relating to God as Father because they had a terrible or absent earthly father. The problem with this is that the God whom we call Father is not a magnified version of our earthly father. No, our earthly fathers, if we are so blessed, bear in some way, the image of the heavenly Father down to us. It is the problem of the mirror. Is the image in our mirror the earthly father extrapolated to the size of God or God who in some small yet significant way is mirrored in our earthly dads? We don't call God Father because He is like our earthly fathers. We call our earthly dads father because, even imperfectly, they can and, if we are so blessed, do reflect the Heavenly Father to us. This does not take anything away from our earthly dads. In fact, it does just the opposite. This does not diminish his fatherly love and service to us but elevates it. God shines Himself through a sinful and flawed man whom we call dad without magnifying his failings and pinning them on God.
You need not have enjoyed a virtuous and blessed earthly dad to enjoy calling God Father. It is great when it happens that we have good and wise and loving earthly dads and this helps us understand and appreciate the Heavenly Father but it is not essential. God does not do what our earthly dads do only a little better or more so. Our earthly dads do in a very small yet profound way some of what our Heavenly Father does all the time. We all know only too well the limitations of the flesh. We know the faults and failings of our earthly dads. We learn over time to forgive them and to look past all of the things in which they have missed the mark and to be grateful for the things they did on our behalf -- all be it imperfectly. It is in the kinds of things an earthly dad does that he is a reflection of our Heavenly Father and not in how well he does them.
My own father is now gone ten years. He was a good and decent man but not perfect. As time goes on I am able to see more clearly his goodness than his faults but I am never confused and neither would he want me to be. He was not a smaller version of God to me but a reflection of all God's goodness within the boundaries of human frailty and his own experience and life. I hope and pray that my kids understand this with respect to me. God does all things well. I do a few, so very few things passably in comparison. I hope all dads feel the same. It does not diminish our fatherhood but honors God's. If in some small way, we are reflections of God's goodness, we must not forget that earthly dads are not mirrors of what God has done wrong. He has done and continues to do all things well. If an earthly dad teaches you this one thing, he has done okay.
1 comment:
The mirror is the first place I Look when sin barges into my life like a bull in a China shop, where the reflected image of myself depresses me. Although I am a sinner, saved by grace, the self portrait in the mirror reaffirms to me why all spiritual boasting is wrong, and without Christ and the mercy of God the floor would drop on our lives, and that spiritual death looms. The mirror was invented because mankind is a vain creature, and he enjoys looking at his own reflection. The pride we feel in looking our best is merely our outward best as we present ourselves to the world, but God looks into the unseen reflection of our souls, seeing how none of us are worthy. As children, we observed our parents and siblings and saw their imperfections clearly, even as we loved them dearly, but we were and are often blind to our own sinful nature, and we do not see the carnal passions and pride which creates the blindspots in the mirror. It is the Lord’s compassion and willingness to hold us up in spite of ourselves that reflects a true and unwavering love, unconditional mercy, and the promise of eternal life through the cross of Jesus. It is only grace that keeps the mirror from cracking from side to side as we peer into the image of ourselves. Soli Deo Gloria
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