Outside my office window a mockingbird flutters and hops. Tail stiffly erect, it cusses and pecks at the other bird – the one in the side-view mirror of a truck in the parking lot. After I laughed a bit, I saw a God-message.
How often do I find something annoying in another person that is really a reflection of a flaw in my own personality? It is easier to project frustration about so and so’s control freak attitudes than to confront my own. Perhaps gritting my teeth with someone constantly interrupting a conversation to put in her two cent’s worth should spur me to think how often I do that very same thing. The woman who always turns the conversation to be about her- is that me as well?
Perhaps, like that silly mockingbird I am really pecking at myself. Maybe if I stop long enough, I will see the log in my own eye instead of the speck in someone else’s. (Matthew 7:3-5) I will realize the character traits in others that are like an irritating seed in my gums is my own foot in my mouth.
If you have a person you are finding a hard time being cordial to, go to your knees and ask God if He brought that person into your life to reflect a flaw He wants to help you overcome. Maybe, just maybe, He is using that person as a mirror to reflect a sin in your life. Will you, like that mockingbird just keep pecking away, or will you back off to realize you seem that way as well?
Lord, if I am going to be like a mockingbird, mimicking the traits of others, let it be of You. Let me grow to where all I see is You in my reflection. Afterall, You made me in the image of you. Help me not to distort it so much. Through Your Son Jesus who is perfect, Amen.
