You may look at the world we are living in and think things have never been as crazy and out of control as they are now. Because we are peering out windows all day long. If my eyes are open, I’m looking out a window.

The windows in my home. The windows in my car. The windows holding the eyeglass lenses I need to see in the distance. Then there are the screens I look through at the world around me. My phone. My tablet. My smart watch. The bigger screen for watching entertainment. They are all windows. 

The windows I might be glimpsing through can be a conversation I’ve had, a bit of gossip that grabs my attention or a book I’m reading. 

As our Sunday message series continues, the window is the Bible and events recorded seem a lot like the world we are in. Death. Betrayal. Violence and sexual sin. There really isn’t anything new, the packaging is all that’s different.

So, we look. And we look. And we look, all the while forming opinions about what we see and the unique way we perceive it. I still do not control my tongue and there are times I am quick to speak and pass judgment on what I see. Those windows and the mess I see others dealing with make me oblivious to my own mess. The problem is with me. When I am busy looking at the messes and mistakes of others, I do not see my own. 

A kind, older man once told me when I am pointing my finger at others, I have three pointing back at me. Scripture, in Matthew 7:3, says this; “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

Windows are a poor substitute for a mirror. I may get a reflection, but not a clear image. Honestly, if I allow myself to be distracted with and by the lives of others, I don’t consider taking a hard look at myself. I want to look, but it’s so much easier picking apart the failings of others.

In Genesis 38, Judah makes some decisions that impact the lives of others. His choices trigger decisions born out of desperation. The culture then, was radically different regarding position, opportunities and roles of men and women. It was in this setting where Judah finds himself looking out a window judging his daughter in law, Tamar. Two of Judah’s sons married her, first Er and then Onan. Due to their wickedness, God killed them. Judah promised Tamar his youngest son, Shelah, when he was grown. But he did not keep his promise.

Tamar sees she will not be given this youngest son and, in her desperation, she comes up with a plan. She finds out her father in law is going to have his sheep sheared and this represents a time when the men party down. She poses as a prostitute, and Judah “hires” her. She asks for a pledge of payment and he gives her his seal, the cord his seal was attached to and his staff. These were personal items that identified the owner.

Tamar is pregnant from this encounter and when Judah finds out, he is furious. He assumes she has been prostituting herself, not considering his own indiscretion. He orders her to be burned, until she sends him a message that the man who owns the seal, cord and staff is the father. Judah is the man. He is the father of this child.

To his credit, Judah shifts from looking out the window at Tamar, and looks at his reflection in a mirror. He doesn’t sleep with her again, and one of her twins is in the lineage of Jesus. See Luke Chapter 3.

Windows or mirrors? More often than not, looking out windows into the lives of others, does not initiate health or change. It leads to judging and criticizing. It leads to thinking more highly of myself than I ought.

Looking into a mirror with the goal of honest self-evaluation can bring about change better than imagined. I have looked at my life, and at times, looked away because I didn’t like what I saw. In other seasons, I asked God to help me see what I needed to see. To have the desire to move beyond where I found myself. I have never regretted those times.

God wastes nothing. My life before Jesus is full of self-destruction, and choices made out of pain and confusion. God has brought amazing new life and purpose out of that season. Once I chose to look into the mirror of God’s grace, truth and love, everything changed. Most importantly, my perspective.

How about you? Windows or mirrors?