The Mirror On Straight Street
“As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.”
—Proverbs 27:19
Dead Reckoning (from the last blog post from Inside the Circle)
The Dead Reckoning
Your Dead Reckoning happens anytime you find yourself asking, “How did I get here?” You can’t go forward—the way ahead is hazy. You can’t go backward—that life holds nothing for you. You can’t stand still—that leaves you in the path of danger.
You return to your last known location. Sometimes that means going back to the last thing God told you to do—the last time you know that you heard Him clearly. And you recalculate... How do you do that? By reflecting.
The Mirror I Avoid
Full disclosure—I avoid mirrors. I don’t mean that I never look in a mirror. I am never going out of the house without putting on some form of makeup, which means I’ve got to at least peek into the mirror enough to get the lipstick in the right spot. And the mirror comes in handy when I sense there are remnants of my lunch lodged conspicuously in my teeth. What I’m confessing is that I never look very long. One glance, and I’m out the door. Why? Because I’m afraid of what I will see.
James 1:23-24 says, “Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.”
Such a strange scenario—I’ve been stuck with this face all of my life! I can see it in my sleep and recall every feature and flaw with my eyes closed. How weird would it be for me to stare at myself in the mirror, turn around, and totally forget what I look like? That’s what James says is happening when we hear, read, and study the Word of God, and then act like we never heard it before. Its wisdom and guidance hold no power for us. We never change.
Wisdom from the Stream
So why does a person choose to ignore what the Word says about life? For the same reason, I avoid mirrors—they are afraid of what they will see.
Reflection is such a powerful discipline. The book of Proverbs offers a metaphor of someone who casually walks by a stream, glances down, and sees their face reflected in the water. Solomon compares the water to our lives. How we live, what we say, how we act, the choices we make—it all reveals what is in our hearts. It’s a mirror reflecting what we value, reflecting from the inside out.
Then James comes along, taking the metaphor to an entirely different level by saying that the mirror is actually the Word of God. We cannot get a clear, accurate, and valid assessment of our hearts by merely doing a self-evaluation. We can’t hope to make permanent change by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps or by sheer willpower. We need the Word of God to show us who we really are. Instead of taking a glance and walking out the door, we need to stare into the pages and let it transform us—from the outside in.
Blindness and Breakthrough
So what does this have to do with a Dead Reckoning? How does this help us find our way when we have no idea where we are? Let’s go back to our story about Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. He had his Dead Reckoning when Jesus met him face-to-face and left him with no place to look but inside of himself. Being blind, he had to go back and do the last thing that the Lord told him to do—go to the house of Judah on Straight Street, wait, and pray.
Saul had plenty of time to reflect on his life. He had to come to terms with the fact that everything he thought he knew about Jesus was wrong. Everything he had been raised to believe about the Old Testament and the way it directed his life as a Jew was wrong. The people whom he persecuted could actually be right!
The Three-Day Conversation
We don’t know what kind of conversation Saul had with God during those three days, but we do know that it changed his life and the entire world forever. Saul could have wrestled and reflected on some of the following questions:
Who are you, Lord? I thought I knew, but now I’m not so sure. You are nothing like I thought you were.
Who am I? I am a Hebrew of Hebrews; of the tribe of Benjamin; a Pharisee; faultlessly following the law. But none of that matters now. It’s all garbage.
What is my purpose? I’m nothing without purpose. My purpose used to be to protect and defend the law, which meant persecuting the church. Why am I here? Why did you call me?
What is in me that needs to go? Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
What is my next step? I’m blind and can’t see one foot in front of me.
What do I need to know to fulfill it?
A Challenge to Listen
Those are the same questions that we need to reflect on with God as we allow His Word to answer them for us. So I challenge you right now to reflect and to really listen. Open the Word of God and let it reveal the things that are hard to look at in yourself—the things that you don’t want to see.
Don’t make the mistake of looking at yourself in the mirror, turning around, and forgetting what you look like. And don’t allow the truth of God to fall by the wayside. What is in your heart eventually comes out. You can’t hide your heart any more than you can hide your face.