Forty Minutes For A Little Boy's Soul

I once found myself shaving by the side-view mirror of the four-wheel drive, mud-encrusted truck that brought me to a primitive place in Africa because my room had no mirrors. This was my first trip to Africa to provide care and oversight to missionaries serving here, and I was learning how poorly prepared I was for the occasion when it came to mirrors.

My relationship with mirrors is conflicted. On the one hand, I need one each morning to comb through what's left of my hair. For some reason, I seem to need one when I brush my teeth, though I already know where my teeth are. But on the other hand, I do not need the mirror to remind me of the laugh lines that have become outright wrinkles. I do not need a mirror to remind me of my enlarged girth or diminished height.

But on that sweltering African morning, I needed a mirror if I was to be successful in removing the tiny hairs that had sprung up on my face overnight. We all need mirrors at some point in our lives, whether it's to be sure the spinach from lunch is not wedged between our canines, to comb through the locks, or to see what the children battling in the back seat of the minivan are doing.

I recently had a good look at myself in the mirror of God’s Word. The Scriptures use the word “mirror” in only four passages. Job refers to the skies above his troubled head as a mirror. Paul in 1 Corinthians avers that we see only through a mirror darkly today but holds out the promise of a face-to-face encounter with Jesus. In 2 Corinthians, he tells us that we see the glory of the Lord in a mirror. But it was the final use of the word mirror that caught my attention.

James 1:23-25 says,

"For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.” (NKJV)

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God’s Word clearly sets out the priorities that we as believers are to practice. In the context of worry, Jesus, in His delivery on the Galilean mountainside, reminds us that our priorities are to be spiritual. He instructed His disciples to seek the things of God first.

Matthew 6:31-33: "Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (NKJV)

My wife and I moved to Florida recently. Without my knowledge (or my permission, I might add), my wife had prayed that God would give us a mission field in our new neighborhood. Someone has said, "Be careful what you pray for." We had barely carried the last 300-pound box off the moving van when we discovered that God had answered my wife’s prayer. Next door were some needy people. One of those people was a precious four-year-old boy who took a liking to both Sue and me. Sometimes he would come to our front door, ring the doorbell, and ask if he could come in and “play with our toys.” He had learned that we kept a stash of toys for guests’ children to play with. Other times, he would want to come in and "play with Uncle Steve.” We were more than happy to be involved in this little guy’s life, as he had been deprived of his real mom by her divorce from his father.

As the first full summer of our time in Florida approached, we asked the adults in the home if we could take Travis (not his real name) to Vacation Bible School. Since the family had come to trust us, they consented. Every day, Travis appeared at our door, ready to go. As time moved on, Travis was allowed to come with us to Sunday School weekly.

Then one day, the family abruptly moved to a new community thirty-five minutes south of us. Due to some challenging circumstances, no one in the family was able to bring him to our home on Sunday mornings so that he could continue attending Sunday School. After some discussion, the family offered to bring Travis halfway between their new home and ours so we could pick him up at a 7-11 convenience store.

The church we attend is a fifteen-minute drive to the north of us. At this point in the experience, I got a rather gruesome glimpse of myself in the mirror of God's Word. Making it possible for this four-year-old boy to attend Sunday School was going to cost me forty minutes of sleep every Saturday night.

Though I dutifully got up earlier each Sunday to make the forty-minute round trip to pick up Travis, I was not doing it with the right heart. I was annoyed at the loss of sleep, the cost of the gas, and I conjured up a myriad of other excuses that my old nature bubbled to the surface.

Then my praying wife hit me right between my eyes with her words. The only time she has ever hit me physically was when as a newlywed, I tried to teach her how to play chess and beat her. It was just a love tap. But I digress.

Sue asked me what I would be willing to give up to see someone trust Christ as Savior. Could I not give up forty minutes to give Travis regular exposure to God’s two-edged sword? I knew the truth, but my practice was a bit short. Bam! (As Emeril would say.) I was confronted with the mirror of God’s Word.

When it comes to “real life,” what are we willing to set aside so that others around us can hear of God's amazing love and grace? No matter how uncomfortable our image in God's “mirror” makes us, we must submit to its expectations.

Travis now says that "church is better than camp." Has he trusted Christ as Savior? Not yet. But he is being exposed to God’s mirror. Our prayer for him is that he will respond to the truth and be eternally transformed. In the meantime, we’ll keep investing forty minutes for a little boy’s soul.

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