Have you ever noticed that there are reflections everywhere? Mirrors, windows (millions of them all over the place), water, cameras, and even in other people. It’s almost as if the world is constantly giving us back some form of ourselves for review. This morning I caught a glimpse of myself and my first reaction was negative judgement. My husband nipped that in the bud, advising me that my words towards myself were exactly what Satan wants to hear.

The last thing Satan wants is for us to see ourselves as our Heavenly Father does… he wants us to feel judged and unworthy. He wants us to always feel less than enough. He wants us to fear failure and always feel inferior. However, none of that is real. Actually, it’s only as real as you allow it to be in your mind. I read something in Lysa Terkeurst’s book, “It’s Not Supposed To Be This Way,” which has really stuck with me. She basically said that, when we were initially created, we were created to live in a perfect world. Our hearts and minds were designed for life in the Garden of Eden. Her point was to explain why we always feel like things should be better than they are…because when we were created, they were as good as they could get. But then we fell. Now we’re all stumbling through life trying to live up to expectations that are unrealistic in a fallen world.

Perhaps this is what makes forgiveness so hard. When we are blessed with a circumstance or relationship in life that is so obviously a gift from God, we have an expectation that the situation or person will live up to our need for perfection. So when the situation has flaws, or the person screws up and hurts us in the process, we tend to feel damaged to our very core. We forget to factor in the fact that they are as imperfect as we are, and that even people who truly love us and would never intentionally do something that would cause us pain are going to make mistakes. We seem to lose sight of the fact that all circumstances involve other human beings, which in and of itself will add an element of imperfection to our perfect plans.

If we focus on the imperfect in life, we are focusing on the worldly reflections and not on the godly grace. God designed us to love and support one another, which is what makes forgiveness so important. If we force out everyone in our lives who lets us down somehow, we will be choosing isolation over fellowship, hate over love, darkness over light. I had several nightmares last night… I refer to them as anxiety dreams. In every single dream, I was being chased by something or someone who wanted to hurt me. Each and every time, I was swept away by someone else and saved just in time. What this tells me is that whatever may be nipping at my heels in this life, I am being carried by someone stronger and mightier than myself.

The reality is that as long as I live in this fallen world, neither I nor my life will achieve the perfection for which my heart and mind are longing. I will always be faced with imperfect reflections of perfection. That being said, I will continue to do my best to look beyond the imperfections and focus on the light of God in the people and situations around me. I will do my best to let go of my need for perfection in those I love, and always try to offer them the reflection of God’s unconditional love. Who or what in your life are you letting slip away because you’re focused on their worldly reflection and not on the light of Christ which lives inside them? This life is temporary, so don’t waste too much of it living in pain, anger, and isolation. God has so much more to offer you than that kind of existence!!

“The beginning of strife is like letting out water [as from a small break in a dam; first it trickles and then it gushes]; Therefore abandon the quarrel before it breaks out and tempers explode.” Proverbs 17:14 AMP