Windows of the Heart, "My Bridegroom, My King"

Excerpt from Episode 1 of "Windows of the Heart" radio program from Dr. Deb Waterbury)

 

Have you ever really wondered at what Paul meant  in 1 Corinthians 13:12 when he wrote,

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

I think what he was getting at is that we look at the world through a lens of ourselves.  I see everything through the lens of myself.  I interpret the world around me, the people around me, and my experiences through my own perspective, and unfortunately, that perspective is terribly flawed. 

We’re all flawed, which makes this lens we see through quite dim, and it’s dim for any number of reasons.  It’s dim because of our expectations, it’s dim because of our emotions, but mostly it’s dim because of our sin and our subsequent perceptions in light of that sin.

 

For the believer, the struggle is seeing through this cloudy, smudged up window into something so beyond our comprehension that we can find ourselves squinting and frustrated at what we think we see there.  We read the Bible, we study it, and we know the words.  We know that it promises that we are loved beyond compare, that we were set apart and chosen despite our imperfections, and it refers to us as the bride of Christ, the betrothed of the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

 

The problem is not that we don’t read those words or even believe them.  The problem is that we can’t perceive them.  We can’t really see what they are because we’re doomed to looking through this window dimly.  While on this earth, the window of our heart struggles to see the magnitude of these promises.  Yet God does not want His children to go through life miserably uninformed.  He has given us His Word to direct our knowledge toward the seemingly impossible love that is ours in Christ Jesus.

 

So, how can we perceive this truth in a world which translates into such a smudge-up, dim window?

 

It occurs to me that the only way we can even begin to do so, though our mirrors will remain dim while living in these fallen bodies, is by looking intently at what the Bible tells us of the amazing love that all believers have in Christ Jesus.  We may have to squint and work at making out fuzzy shapes and ideas, but we can get glimpses of the truth if we look into the only place where there is truth--God's Word.

Jesus Christ is the Bridegroom referred to in Isaiah 54:56,

 

For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.  For the Lord has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God.

He is our Redeemer and our intimate Savior, and He loves us more fully and completely than we can comprehend.  How sad it is when we live as if that love isn't already ours! 

 

It doesn't have to be that way, at least not so much.  We study and we read and we meditate on great bible writings like the Song of Solomon and Ephesians 5 because in them we get glimpses into this unfathomable love that is ours in Jesus.  May we work daily at wiping away the smudges of sin and imperceptions and misconceptions on our windows to eternity and instead see a little more clearly into the love of all loves and the King of all kings:  our Jesus.

 

To listen to the complete recording of Episode 1 of the "Windows of the Heart" radio program, click the radio icon in the upper right corner, or download the podcast on iTunes.