Today’s generation are enamored by the selfies they take using their cell phones with exaggerated poses, faces and what not. The commercial showing someone taking a selfie in front of a mirror reminds us of the counsel of James. Be careful of just looking in the mirror and walking away forgetting the image before you. Paul wrote that Moses, after his meetings with Yahweh, wore a veil lest the shine blind the eyes of his audience but it would fade between his times with the Lord. Perhaps that is a good reason for us to be in His presence daily so that we will radiate His glory to all we meet.

In today’s reading it is as if the author of Proverbs is taking a selfie of himself and perhaps strangers who come across his path. He then reviews his selfies and draws some conclusions. Who is staring back at him? One image is of the heir but he acts shamefully which probably means he reveals his snobbiness or pout if his way is unrequited. And then there is the one who acts wickedly whose desire is to pervert the ways of justice; he refuses wise counsel. His selfie image shows one with a countenance of arrogance. And then there is the gossip who slyly says I won’t repeat a word but once out of sight, out of mind that false humility turns to undoing the most precious commodity one can have: a friend. But these are not the only self-images before us. There is the one image that reveals a transformed life in the clay jar in which God has hidden his treasure of the new life and our veil/mask is removed just as Moses removed his veil. We now radiate the transformed life and “are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, which is from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

Today will you take a true selfie? Will you not walk away but choose to allow the Lord who tests the hearts to test yours and correct that image by transforming you from the inside out? As you spend time in the presence of the Lord much as Moses did and returned with a God-radiance, will you choose to spend time in His presence? What if we could see what Christ sees? Would it change our selfie?