When you look in the mirror, how do you see yourself? Who do you think you are? When you strip away the titles that describe you as a son or daughter, a friend or student, a teenager or a young adult, who are you? How valuable do you think you are? We live in a society that says image is everything. We must have the right look, act right, drive the right car, live in the right neighborhood, and have the right stuff. If you don't have teeth proportion to your gums, or a thin and fit body, or the head that fits the size of your body, you're looked down on. You're an outcast because you don't fit into the image. We have an image we must live up to, so we think. Our value is placed on how we see ourselves, how we look, and how others see us. So again, when you look in the mirror, how do you see yourself? You might feel unattractive, unaccepted, unappreciated, or undeserving. Maybe you feel less than awesome, worthless, useless, or hopeless. Or maybe you see the opposite, confidence, good looking, smart, and so forth.
As a result, it robs us of our identity, meaning, and value. However, we are valuable, period! But will never understand who we are and our value until we know Him who gave us value. We are an amazing creation of God. We are uniquely designed and intricately engineered by our Creator. In fact, consider a drop of blood. Within lies the keys to free a man, or to change a man's life, it holds the very who of us. It’s what makes you an individual, nothing like any other—an identity. The most ingenious creation of the history of mankind is you. You will breathe an average of 23,000 times a day. Your heart will beat 101,000 times in a 24 hour period. Your body is comprised of 80% water. If it is reduced by 1% you will become thirsty. The average adult has 10 pints of blood in their body. And if you were to stretch your blood vessels they would stretch to 60,000 miles or around the world. We breathe out. We breathe in. All uniquely designed and created by God.
We are His children, His creation, made in His image. This world and the people in it aren't fit to tell us how valuable we are. Our identity, our security, our sense of value—all of these things should come from the knowledge that we were created by God. Our identity is not defined by how we look, how others see us, or by our failures, our past, and mishaps. We are defined by one man, by one moment, by one love, and by Christ’s work on the cross. We are defined by Christ. With that said, this month the Remnant presents Mugged By the Mirror. This month we will be focusing on the struggles that students and young adults face with society’s image and expectations, how we see ourselves, understanding that we are valuable and loved, how we are defined by the cross, and finding and understanding our identity in Christ.
