Reflections

Our television sits atop a cabinet with glass doors. Jack, our big puppy, was with us in the den when he began to bark and jump at the cabinet. It was quickly apparent that Jack didn’t like the looks of the dog looking back at him in the glass. He looked around the side of the cabinet to see if he could catch the culprit there. Unsuccessful at that, he went back to barking at the black dog that wouldn’t stop looking at him. Jack just couldn’t make any sense of what he was seeing. He is lacking in understanding.

It reminded me of the verse in I Corinthians 13:12, “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” During the time when the Apostle Paul wrote this book, people did not have mirrors as we do today. Their mirrors were of polished bronze; therefore, the reflections were always a bit distorted.

Today, as we go through our lives, there are many situations that are distorted to us.  We lack in understanding.  We want to know why? We want to know when? We can’t know our tomorrows and we can’t always make sense of yesterday’s frustrations and disappointments. We may feel as exasperated as Jack trying to uncover the mystery of the dog hiding in the cabinet.

There is a daily comfort that comes to us as we remind ourselves that, while we may not understand why troubles come our way, we still know there is no calamity that puzzles our heavenly Father. We may feel the weight of our burdens, but we know that no difficulty is too big for God to handle. We may experience the anxiety of walking a path that we do not choose, but we know that our heavenly Father never leaves us alone; He walks with us and holds us up when the way is steep and rocky.

There are many things in our lives that we cannot comprehend, that we wish had never been, that we wish would go away, that we wish we could change. In all these things we can know of a certainly —  our Father does all things well. His promises are true; not sometimes, but all of the time. He takes the bad things and brings about good to bless and strengthen, to give peace and joy.

We look at life and see reflections of things that are puzzling and incomplete. Father looks at our lives and sees all that He is molding coming together just as He has planned, “to give us hope and a future.”