“Through a Glass”

1 Corinthians 13:12 – “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face…” (KJV)

Around 10 a.m. I tried a few last-minute attempts to see the solar eclipse. I made a pinhole and a hole-punch in an index card and tried looking through with my everyday sunglasses. But that didn’t work. Quickly I checked online and took my card back outside, holding it high in the air so I could see the crescent that appeared on the bumpy driveway. I tried crossing my fingers in the palm leaf fashion which resulted in ripple shadows. And, most beautifully of all, I saw little crescents already dappling the driveway – light coming through the leafy eclipse-catchers above. I was mesmerized with the unearthly design of magnolia shadows half-circle prismed in impressionistic art.

Back inside my room, I put on music and began to dance. I observed my responses in movement to what I was sensing on the inside – the presence of God and life it brings. I was aware that I was moved by that Life. It was filling me and taking hold of mind, heart, and body. Motion was graceful and perhaps shy. I noticed my head remained downward, receiving from above, unable to look upward. God’s warmth was stirring me and breathing in me, but I could not immediately look into the Face smiling on and over me. Still He smiled. Slowly my own hands flowed past my head, and following an unseen pull upward, my face dared look up where God met and received me gently. Pieces of thought came together like a puzzle in mid-air.

My punched index card, my blurred vision after a momentary look with everyday sunglasses. The brilliance of a single star, the radiance of heaven. “Through a glass darkly” – what little we know! We see a shadow. As through an index card, as through a viewing box. Imagine it! We are able to study the sun – its path, its energy,… a million facts that help us “understand”. But one little look through a pinhole and we’re partially blinded. We can’t even handle a pinhole’s worth of the actual reality! If this is true with our own sun, small in comparison to the universe, could we not rightly ask ourselves how much we really know about God? We can study Him. We can trace His path. We can make Him a science and think our million facts make us experts. But what about one little look?

The crazy thing is that God caused His fullness to dwell in Jesus (Col. 1:19), and then He made it possible through the Spirit for it to live inside of us “that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:16-19 KJV). Though we see His glory “through a glass darkly”, perhaps as crescent shadows on the path of our lives, we know that the Light is living inside of us. It’s moving us, giving us eternal breath, and passing through our leaves to cast unearthly patterns of heaven. Jesus, shine! “But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn that shines brighter and brighter until the full day” (Proverbs 4:18 NAS).