Think about it. A microscope lets you look at the most minute elements of life. A telescope lets you see the distant stars. Binoculars help you to spy on your neighbor. Eyeglasses help you to see what’s in front of you more clearly. All these tools help me focus on someone or something else. But a mirror helps me to see myself. As a human being, I cannot see myself – at least not without some help. I can’t see what the back of my head looks like. I can’t see my graying hair. I can’t see whether my eyebrows are trimmed. The only way I can become aware of myself is either with a mirror or the help of a friend or family member who tells me things I would not otherwise see.
I think we need more mirrors in today’s world. Pointed or pointless, it’s easy to have an opinion on almost everything. It’s easy to judge others for their inadequacies without even a second thought. You’ve probably heard comments like these and maybe even made them yourself: She’s a hypocrite. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. They aren’t living right. That’s a bad policy. He’s hopeless in that position. It’s easy for me to speak with impunity without the slightest nod to my own imperfections and limitations in knowledge, compassion or experience. At times, I become painfully aware of how shortsighted my opinions are, and how judgmental.
The psalmist said it in a way that still catches me up short just when I think I’ve got everything and everybody figured out.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. (Psalm 51:1-3)
My shortcomings, my narrow viewpoints, my judgments of others are before me. Not behind me. Not beside me. Not hidden or out of sight, but right there in front of me – if I can muster the courage and the honesty to see them.
The painful truth is that my opinions are not God’s opinions, even though I often assume the two are pretty similar. Life is a complex phenomenon. Rarely is truth as clear as many politicians assert, or as it appears to be on Cable TV.
What’s the answer for this spiritual myopia? In the church one traditional antidote is humility. Humility is a clear perspective, and a sincere respect for my place in the bigger context of life – which is almost always less than I think it is. “Blessed are the meek,” Jesus says in Matthew 5:5, adding: “He who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12). C. S. Lewis wrote: “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.”
Unfortunately humility is a rare commodity today. But fortunately even today, humility is not too difficult to begin to discover, especially for me. All I need is to pick up a mirror and open my eyes.

Dent Davis
Pastor, Tryon
Presbyterian Church