God/world

So I was at the gym this afternoon when I noticed a guy lifting weights while he studied himself in the mirror. Then I realized that the section of the gym with all of the weights was surrounded by 3 walls of mirrors. Perhaps I am slow, but I discovered today that the gym is not about making oneself healthy but about making oneself look good for others.

That got me thinking. How much of what we do in life is in the pursuit of making ourselves look for other people? Making it even more personal, how much of my day do I spend worried, obsessed with, and focused on the pursuit of making myself look good for others? The clothes I wear, the things I say, the actions I make, the jokes I attempt to tell, the political choices I make, going to the gym, etc. I began to realize that my life is just like that guy @ the gym. I am staring in a mirror obsessed with myself and the idea of making myself presentable to the world.

In all of this, I realized that I leave God out. I don't care about His opinion. I don't care about His desires. I don't care about His thoughts. Because God is invisible and doesn't seem to offer an audible opinion, I downgrade Him to second-class behind any and all humans being I encounter. That is not right, but it is seemingly true. I literally care what strangers "might" be thinking about with a casual glance my way then what the Creator of the Universe thinks. How sad and desperate is that?!?

I think this might be the root of all my problems and sins in life. I make too many decisions based upon what looks best in the mirror, what looks best in the eyes of my world. Why does it matter? Who cares what anyone else thinks? What matters is what God thinks. And if I feel like I am okay with God on something, then it does not matter if the church or the world is against me. After all, the mirror/world does not give an accurate reflection of me, only God can.