Reflection

Picture with me, if you will, a beautiful, breath-taking mountain. It stretches high into the sky and is the most beautiful thing you could ever see! Its color is a glorious and clear blue, and the top sparkles in the sunlight.


Down below, at the foot of the mountain, there is a lake. It has been put in that particular spot for a reason: to reflect the mountain and its splendor. However, the lake is more like a swamp, with brown grasses and bare trees growing in it. The water is murky and dirty, and the bit that can be seen through the plant overgrowth has no way of reflecting anything. How can the lake fulfill its purpose? If only there was some way to remove the ugliness from it!



So it is with us and God.


God is like the beautiful mountain. His majesty and wonder are indescribable! He is so glorious and strong.


We are like the lake, meant to reflect His beauty and glory. This, though, is impossible for us to do on our own. We are full of sin, which dirties the water and produces tangled vines and tough grasses. There is no way that Jesus can be reflected in us.


But God, Who is rich in mercy, gives us the opportunity to be redeemed, to accept Him into our hearts and lives. Once we do that, He starts the long process of cutting away the debris and clearing out the water. Bit by bit, we lose our life-dominating sin a little at a time: disobedience, rebellion, mean words, ugly and improper thoughts, evil desires, lusts, jealousy, pride, selfishness, discontentment, and the list continues.

If we let Him, we will, little by little, begin to reflect Him, drawing more attention to our King than ourselves. As He clears the lake, it looks more like the mountain than a lake because the mountain is bigger than the lake and its reflection fills the entire area of water.


Becoming a beautiful, reflecting lake is a lifelong process. The Lord knows the amount of sin that we have in our lives and, in His compassion, deals with that sin little by little, one at a time. But we have to be willing to allow God to deal with us.


That doesn't mean that we will never return to a sin once it has been conquered through Christ. However, because we can approach the Throne of Grace with confidence we can be forgiven of the sin and given the ability to move on.

Is there something that Jesus might be pruning from your life right now? Something that you won't allow Him access to deal with? You can only be transformed into a beautiful lake, a radiant reflection of His glory, if you let Him be in control.


~Princess Gloria