The sad thing about self-pity is the “self” part. When we’re down, the cause is usually too much time looking in the mirror. It becomes all about me, my life, my pain, my problems, my situation. The problem with mirrors are that they seem to be accurate, but aren’t. Objects in the mirror are actually closer and uglier than they seem. The point is that we can’t trust the mirror that leads us to self-pity.
In the mirror, the problems are never are distorted. They seem bigger, more insurmountable, unsolvable.
Mirrors tend to focus our attention on details. We lose sight of the big picture. All we can see is the problem. We can’t see all that is good in our lives when gazing through the problem mirror.
Mirrors have narrow focus. If we could just look around a bit we could see that our problems are nothing. We are the man with no shoes, forgetting about the man with no feet. We can’t afford what we want, forgetting about the millions who can’t afford to eat. We are ill in our bodies, forgetting those who are dead in sin.
Instead of looking at mirrors, we need to gaze at God. In that, we can gain a hint of His perspective. We can see our struggles for the tiny irritants they are. We can, through His eyes, see ourselves having unlimited potential in Him. God isn’t in the rear view mirror; He’s visible up ahead in the much broader windshield view.
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