The Reflection

Yesterday morning the pond that is the water hazard on the golf course hole on which we live was perfectly still. There was no water movement at all. I could see a perfect reflection of the trees and if I would have gazed into the still waters, I would have been able to see a near perfect reflection of my face. The mirror you looked into this morning as you brushed your teeth, it too reflects your image.

Water and mirror reflectance are called specular reflection, because the light is reflected in one direction off those smooth surfaces, whereas diffuse reflection coming off rough surfaces tends to reflect light in numerous directions. And both water and mirror images are virtual images, as opposed to real images, because the light rays only appear to emanate from the object. Real images on the other hand are actual light rays coming from an object and being projected upon another (such as a cinema screen). In one way, mirror images differ from water images. In a vertical mirror, the top and bottom of the image remains the same while the left and right sides are reversed. Looking at the reflection created by water, just the opposite. The top and bottom images are flipped while the left and right remain the same. See the picture in this post.

Solomon, the writer of Proverbs, and the wisest man to ever live (1 Kings 3:11-15) wrote this in Proverbs 27:19 – “As water reflects the face, so the heart reflects the person.”

David, after being confronted by the prophet Nathan about his adulteress affair with Bathsheba, and conspiring to have her husband killed as a coverup, said this in Psalm 51:10 – “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in me.”

You might be saying that you have the power to cure what ails your heart. But we are told that our hearts are incurable (Jeremiah 17:9) … incurable outside the power of God.

David knew that – “Create in me a pure (clean) heart.” The Hebrew word used here is “bara’.” It means to create, shape or form. You say that makes sense; I can do that. I can “bara’” my own clean heart. Yes, we can do our part by being careful about what we do, what we say, who not so fast. Le hang out with, what we watch and read, on and on. But let’s look at the Hebrew word used in this context for “create.”

This word “bara’” is used over 50 times in the Old Testament. In every single case, God is the subject; meaning He is the one doing the creating. We see that same word in Gen 1:1 – “In the beginning, God created (bara’) the heavens and earth. In v.27 we are told that “God created (bara’) man in his own image; he (bara’) him in the image of God; he (bara’) them male and female.” This kind of creating is a divine creating; meaning it is God who initiates a clean heart in us.

So, today and tomorrow, and every day after that, will you make this your desperate plea – Oh God, help me guard my heart, and please, by only what only you can do, create (bara’) in me a clean heart, a pure heart, making my spirit right!

When you look into the mirror or the water, what reflects back?