I would say during the last quarter of the year while listening to a sermon by Pastor Steven Furtick, I took notice to the words, “You will survive the sifting.” If you’ve never been in a season whereby everything you encounter seems to attempt to snip a little peace or piece out of you, just move along – nothing to see here. But if you are looking back over 2021 or any season of testing in your life, I’m certain you can relate. At any rate, the words struck me so deeply that I elected to write the words on a post it note and place it on my mirror – a place that I would undoubtedly visit daily and spend some time engaging thereof. Since I’ve spent a significant amount of time, working from home, I’ve found myself returning to the mirror throughout the course of my day – beyond brushing my teeth and washing my face. Difficult meeting? Return to the mirror. Challenging conversation? Return to the mirror. Text message that leaves me empty? Return to the mirror. Certainty about how “I know He’ll make a way, but uncertainty regarding, “I don’t know how?” Return to the mirror. Need a little encouragement? Return to the mirror. And while the words are certainly prophetic and scriptural (see: Luke 23:21: “And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.”), the post it for me is representation that no matter what I am engaged with, I have a place and a space that is rooted in God for my good, despite what is reflected in my life. A return to the mirror is indicative of God’s hand over whatever I encounter, simply because I have the assurance to go to Him no matter the circumstance. Will said action result immediately in difference? I wish I could say yes, but I’d be lying, because how we envision a thing to manifest and how God ordains it to be may appear strikingly misaligned. Think fun house mirror. Yet as we “return to the mirror,” we gain the confidence and hope and faith that no matter the outcome, God’s “working it out” will be for our good.

I posted a meme I discovered online a week or so ago, teasing that none of us should go into 2022 claiming anything, and that we all need to be quiet, not touch anything and be still. Sounds easy, but when God is not moving in the manner by which we hope, we tend (let me scratch that, perhaps you don’t), I tend to want to help Him out. After all, He has His hands full and my small amount of manipulation won’t hurt too much. Wrong! If I practice returning to the mirror daily, I am reminded and affirmed that God’s intentionality for me supersedes my temporary intervention. His provision over me cannot be traced by my limited imagination and projection. His plans for me as the songwriter said, “Go beyond my wildest dreams.”

Mirrors reverse the direction of the image in an equal yet opposite angle from which the light shines upon it. For mirrors to work, a smooth surface as well as light is required. In God, we have both. Whatever we need reflected in the world, in our circumstances, in our daily lived experience, can be managed as we press into Him. I’m not suggesting that what we are navigating alters instantaneously. If that were true, my sifting would have never begun. I am standing upon the promises of God that suggests that He has the propensity to enable us to see beyond our present circumstance in such a way that we can reflect His goodness, His faithfulness, His perpetuity, even as we are experiencing a dark season. What is on the mirror of your heart or the mirror of your spirit or the mirror of your thoughts to endure not only the transition into a new year, but a transition in terms of your relationship and dependency upon the Creator? Our sifting does not make us more independent, but instead, interdependent upon God. As we return to the mirror regarding everything in our lives, the good, the bad and the ugly, may we be empowered to see Him and not we ourselves nor what is sifting us. God will see us through. The enemy would have us to believe that the objects in the mirror are closer than they appear. Perhaps there is some validity in that statement – but God is closer. My friend posted a video of his dear grandmother who has gone on to glory. During a sermon, she preached, “We are never alone. We have an Emmanuel!” God is always with us! He is our return to the mirror; and whatever we must do to remind ourselves of that factoid, may we not make haste! Put it on your mirror!