Ocular Angles ~ Identity [Part 2]: The True Mirror

Some decades ago, Johns Hopkins University conducted a survey of about 8,000 students from 48 colleges. The analysis was part of a two-year study sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health. The purpose was to determine what these college students considered most important in life. Surprisingly, only 16% of the students said ‘money’ while 78% said ‘finding a purpose and meaning to my life’.[1] I think an excellent follow-up study would be to track these people down today and ask them if they indeed found a purpose and meaning to their lives.

 

Why is it so hard to find purpose and meaning? Why is something essential to living well so elusive? I believe part of the answer is firmly rooted in fear. I once saw a cartoon of Kermit the Frog sitting in front of a doctor. The doctor is holding up Kermit’s x-ray, which shows a human hand inside of Kermit’s head. The speech bubble above the doctor reads, “What I’m about to tell you will change your life forever. Are you really sure you want to know it?” The cartoon made me chuckle, but it’s true what they say about comedians being prophets. We are hesitant to investigate ourselves for fear of what we might find.

 

This makes sense of one of the most loudly touted claims in mainstream Western culture today: You Define Yourself.

 

This message comes to us through advertisements, streaming services, books, and magazines. The claim is simple: “Your identity is hidden inside of you. Want to find your identity? No problem! You define yourself!”

 

But there is a problem. A ruler does not self-determine how far apart its inches are. A level does not self-determine its plumbline. If they did, it would render them useless and without meaning. In the same way, telling someone to define themselves is like putting them in a forest with a compass that only points to themselves. This does not lead to liberation, but lostness.

 

Recently I was on a plane travelling back from a speaking engagement. I was seated in the aisle, and all the windows around me were closed. I was listening to music, so I didn’t hear the announcements from the cockpit. Before I realized it, I sensed the craft was moving. I took my earbuds out and listened. I felt the movements of the airplane as it taxied on the tarmac, but for the life of me I couldn’t tell if we were moving forward or backward. It was extremely disorienting! It’s like that moment when you’re in a parked car and the car beside you begins slowly pulling backward. For an instant it feels like your car is drifting forwards! How do we correct this disorientation? The answer is simple. We need a reference point. If I had reached over and lifted up the window blind, I could have seen a passing tree or light pole and instantly determined if the plane was taxiing forward or backward. Similarly, as we travel through life, we need something outside of ourselves to be a reference point for our lives.

 

Sealing a person up inside of themselves and telling them to be their own reference is to relegate them to disorientation and confusion. Author Lewis Smedes explains this well: “Some people ask who they are and expect their feelings to tell them. But feelings are flickering flames that fade after every fitful stimulus. Some people ask who they are and expect their achievements to tell them. But the things we accomplish always leave a core of character unrevealed. Some people ask who they are and expect visions of their ideal self to tell them. But our visions can only tell us what we want to be, not what we are.” [2]

 

Your feelings aren’t you. 

Your achievements aren’t you. 

Your dreams aren’t you.

So, as the caterpillar asked Alice, Who Are You?

 

In my opinion, forcing someone to define themselves is not only disorienting, but also profoundly damaging. What I mean is this: Who’s your hardest critic? Most of us would answer: ‘The person hardest on me is… me.’ We are harshest on ourselves; therefore, sealing a person up in a room with their own opinion of themselves might leave them battered and full of self-loathing. As Timothy Keller rightly observes: “Perhaps the most damaging statements that have ever been said about us are those things we have said about ourselves to ourselves.” [3]

 

At this point in the discourse, someone might think it best to not define themselves, and rather let other people define them. But even this can prove fatal to our mission for finding identity and meaning. Consider how other people’s opinions of you vary drastically from one another. Not only that, but others perception of you can change over time. And you yourself as a person are always changing. It’s like the hall of mirrors at the back of the curiosity shop my brother and I would visit as kids. One mirror made us tall and skinny, the next mirror made us short and stout, yet another made us wavy and curly. The reason has to do with concave and convex surfaces in different parts of each mirror (this is why your face appears upside-down when reflected in a spoon). These angles change the way the reflected light hits the eye. Our brains perceive this reflection as a distorted image. That’s why moving closer to such a mirror only increases the distortion; the angle of the light entering the eye as the brain interprets the image becomes more and more extreme. My brother and I would move from mirror to mirror, laughing hysterically until we fell on the floor. Truly, it was hilarious! But imagine that we had never seen ourselves in an accurate mirror before. That hall of mirrors wouldn’t be funny, it would be terrifying. One moment I’d say, ‘Look at me, I’m so tall and skinny!’, and the next moment I’d say, ‘Oh no, never mind, I’m short and stout’, and a moment later I’d say, ‘Now I’m wavy and curvy! What’s happening to me?!’ The world is like that. People either make us out as more than we are, or devalue us, or a combination of both. Others cannot perceive us perfectly. The closer we hold these distorted views to ourselves, the more distorted our self-perception becomes. We need an accurate mirror.

 

The epistle of James describes the Word of God as a true way to see ourselves. James writes, “If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently as his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” (James 1v23-25) When we behold ourselves as God sees us, we begin to make sense to ourselves. This is the unchanging reference point we have been looking for. There’s no better eye to see yourself through than His. The voices in the mainstream media got part of the assessment right: your identity is indeed hidden. But it’s not hidden in yourself, and it’s not even hidden in other people. Instead, according to Colossians 3v3, your identity is “hidden with Christ in God.” Therefore, it is only by discovering Christ that we can discover ourselves. It’s only by looking into His word that we can understand who we truly are, and we begin to change into that person.

 

I’m deeply moved by the passages in the Bible that say we are the apple of God’s eye. [4] When I looked this Hebrew phrase up in Strong’s Concordance, I learned that it literally means we are the ‘little person’ of God’s eye. This is in reference to that moment when you are close enough to someone else’s face that you can see your own face reflected in their eyeball. Have you ever seen your reflection in another person’s eye? You have to be very close! God’s description of how He sees us depicts His closeness, His eyes open to us, His eyes upon us. You are where you need to be when you are close enough to see your face reflected in His gaze. Only then can you discover who you truly are.

 

I think the Westminster Catechism expounds on this idea beautifully. The Westminster Catechism was used in churches long ago as a method of corporate worship. The book was organized as a series of questions and answers. The leader would ask the question, and the congregation would respond with the answer. One question in the Westminster Catechism reads: “What is the chief end of man?” Meaning, what’s our purpose in life? The response reads: “To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

When you are close to God, you enjoy Him. 

When you let Him direct your life, you glorify Him. Everything else falls into place. As Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6v33)

 

Which mirror are you looking into? The world will look at you and tell you what it sees. That reference point is always changing, and it’s not accurate at all. It’s a house of mirrors. Only the Word is an accurate mirror. The Word beckons you see yourself as your Maker sees you; to see yourself as the little person reflected in His eyes. As we get closer, that image becomes more defined and we see through His gaze that we have meaning, that we are being restored, and that we are beloved and desired.

"And we all having been unveiled in face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image." -2 Corinthians 3v18

 

[1] Frankl, V. E. (2021). Man's search for meaning: The classic tribute to hope from the holocaust. Page 100

[2] Lewis Smedes, “Controlling the Unpredictable—The Power of Promising” (Christianity Today 27:2 (January 21, 1983): 16–19)

[3] Keller, T., & Keller, K. (2016). The meaning of marriage: Facing the complexities of commitment with the wisdom of God. Page 147

[4] Deuteronomy 32v10, Psalm 17v8