Through a Glass, Darkly

Posted by Andrea

Read I Corinthians 13



Now I see but a poor reflection, as in a mirror. Then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part. Then I will know fully, even as I am fully known. I Corinthians 13:12


These beautiful words are situated near the end of the famous Love Chapter. They are often skimmed over in a rush to get to "These three remain." We need to know that it’s no accident that this verse is situated where it is. The theme here is that love endures forever. Perfect love has no ending, so what does the mirror have to do with anything? As you can see from the comics, mirrors lie. In this case, I contend that the world shows us a temporal and skewed view of love.





It has ever since Eve’s disastrous encounter with the serpent’s lies. God wired women to long to be cherished, pursued, rescued, wooed. Eve experienced the fullness of what we want and what God intended for us. She knew from the moment her eyes opened that she was designed by God especially for Adam. Neither of them would ever have considered intentionally wounding the other for self preservation, but things changed when it came time to explain things to God. Standing next to her, Adam separated himself from her by saying, “the woman made me do it.” How alone she must have felt in that moment.



Worse than the physical nakedness, her husband, in his own fear, left her completely exposed.



Ever since, women have been seeking affirmation through a skewed idea of love. We don’t want much, really. Just someone who gets how we tick and loves us passionately anyway. Looking through a glass, darkly as the King James Version puts it, we search for our interpretation of love in human form. And we are constantly disappointed because we don’t see love for what it is.



Paul spells out what love really is in First Corinthians. We hear it read at weddings yet seldom do we put any of it into practice after the reception, baring out the statement, “now we see but a poor reflection.” Intellectually, we know how we need to love, but it’s just so much easier not to.



People will always disappoint on the love front simply because they are people. But they are people God chose to love.


Then we will know fully, even as we are fully known.


The First Corinthians kind of love is what God always intended for us. It is the love we should hope for and work towards, but it is not until the elusive “then” that we will really get it. We will know fully. We will finally see ourselves through God’s eyes. We will recognize exactly what it is about us that God finds particularly captivating. We need to look into the mirror the world holds up to us and recognize it as a poor reflection. We need to arm ourselves with the truth as defined in God’s word, and we need to rest in the knowledge that we are fully known and fully loved, and one day, we’ll get it.


How it must have broken God's heart to witness the rift in the way he intended romance! God granted Eve vindication with the promise that the Savior would be her offspring (Gen 3:15), and he offered her, and all others after her, the chance at the true, soul satisfying love that is only found in him.


For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only son. That whoever believes in him, will not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16