When Moses gathered the children of Israel together to begin work on the tabernacle (Ex. 35-39), he called on Bezalel, a gifted artistan, to help make the furnishings. We're told that certain women were asked to give their precious bronze mirrors to make the bronze basin he was constructing (38:8). They gave them up to help prepare a place where God's presence would reside.
Give up our mirrors? For most of us, that would be hard to do. That's not something we're asked to do, but it makes me think about how too much scrutiny and self-examination can be disconcerting. It can make us think too much about ourselves and not enough about others. When we can forget about our own faces quickly and remember that God loves us as we are - in all our imperfections - then we can begin to "look out not only for [our] own interests but also for the interests of others" (Phil. 2:4).
Augustine said that we get lost in loving ourselves but found in loving others. Put another way, the secret of happiness is not getting our face right but giving our hearts away, giving our lives away, giving ourselves away, in love. A heart that is focused on others will not be consumed with self.
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