Mirror, mirror, on the wall….
Mirror, mirror, on the wall….
Narcissus’
total obsession with himself was the eventual cause of his
self-destruction. This self-absorption
is the primary characteristic of the prevailing worldview in the western
world. The intense focus on self causes
us to lose touch with the actual reality around us. Instead of looking for the truth behind
observable reality, we look for truth within ourselves. It’s like trying to fix a blemish on our face
by applying the solution to the image we are seeing in the mirror.
The world around us, the external reality, becomes a
reflection instead of a reality. We use
reality in an attempt to define who we are.
Reality’s profound truth is diminished to a self-serving tool to help us
discover ourselves. Clothing no longer
is used to keep us warm or to provide us with covering so much as it is used to
define who we are. We become what we
wear. The car we drive is no longer simply
a means of transportation, it defines us.
Our relationships are no longer about others. Rather, they are all about
us, about me. We define ourselves by
living through the one we are dating or are married to. Thus, the real becomes an image to gives us
back reflections of ourselves.
When truth and substance are no longer elements of
reality, reality becomes simply a mirror and we pervert it to try to force it
to tell us we are “fairer than them all”.
In these modern times, our ‘self’ is totally dependent
upon our circumstances. We look to
others and to stuff to reflect back to us an image of who we are. But, were we not all born in the image of God? Our only hope of actually knowing self is to
look to Christ for an accurate reflection of who we are. When we see the reality of our sinfulness
against his holiness it is most sobering and causes many to seek repentance
from the sin that has caused such darkness to take abode in the deeper parts of
the soul.
Kevin Probst - Teaches History, Government and Apologetics at the high school level in Columbus Georgia.
