To her great delight, my youngest daughter Adelyn was given some chocolate. With a huge smile and all ten fingers, she wasted no time in eating most of it. I say most because what didn’t make it into her mouth made it onto her face!
Once she was done, I handed her a wet napkin and asked her to wipe and clean her face. She tried her very, very best, but left a whole lot. Still, she was insistent it was clean. So I picked her up, walked to a mirror, and showed her her face. Once she saw herself she was convinced.
How about you? Have you ever thought you were above reproach in one area of your life, yet someone close to you was patiently and kindly saying to you, “You need to be careful...you need to work on...I’ve been noticing that...”? If so, listen. Don’t despise, don’t ignore, and don’t reject that person or their words.
If you’ve been wise enough to invite people into your life to keep you accountable, then be wise enough to admit that temptation, greed, arrogance, selfishness, and countless other things are seldom waiting for you where you most expect them. Rather, it’s where you least expect them.
Many times those things that will tangle our feet and bring us to the ground can hide in plain sight, simply because our eyes have grown accustomed to our surroundings. When you’re in familiar territory, you let your guard down. When you feel confident and strong, you become lazy and careless. Like chocolate on our face, we’re convinced there’s nothing there and that we’re not at risk.
This kind of familiarity is precisely why we need others in our lives. We all need close friends whom we trust, who love us enough to “get a mirror” in order to show us the truth.
Do you have mirrors in your lives? Friends who can and will speak and show you the obvious, yet hidden, truth? When was the last time you listened to someone, recognized the truth they shared with you, and confessed to them, “I do need to work on this”?
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