10 years ago, I travelled to Paris, France and Vienna, Austria by myself for a brief vacation in mid-summer. As much as I enjoyed visiting some of the most historic places in the world like the Louvre Museum and Versailles Palace, I was often frustrated by how to take pictures of myself at these places. Sure, I took plenty of pictures of these breathtakingly beautiful gardens, museums, and landmarks. But I wasn’t in any of them, and I wanted to be in some of them. At first, I asked other tourists to take my picture, which most of the time they willingly agreed. However, after a while, I got tired of asking others to take my picture. I knew then that I had one last resort if I wanted pictures of these places with me in them: the selfie.
Despite my best efforts, I struggled trying to take a selfie. I wanted to take selfies in one of the mirrored halls at Versailles Palace but my attempt to get the artwork in the background and my face in the foreground made my head look twice as big. I then tried to take the selfies with my arm completely stretched out. Those pictures turned out with half my face cut off.
I then figured since this was my first real experience taking selfies that I should research those who were most familiar with the selfie. After seeing a child of around 8 years old take a selfie, I knew I had to do better. I figured that if I was going to learn how to take selfies, I needed to just do it! So that’s what I did: regardless of how they turned out, I kept taking selfies. By the end of my one-week trip, I had a nice collection of selfies. Some were bad, but most were good. But I learned an important lesson in taking selfies. When I took the selfie, if my focus was on trying to get the scenery or background in the picture, they didn’t turn out well. However, when I changed my focus to the center of the photo (me!) instead of what was in the background, the selfie turned out great. And now 10 years later, the technology that helps us take the best selfie is built into most cell phones.
We often make the same mistake with God. We get so distracted by the things that are going on around us that we forget to focus on God and his purpose for our lives. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Would God be anywhere in your spiritual selfie, or would He be edged out by work related, church related and family related distractions? Even though it is challenging to do, we should strive for our spiritual selfie to be like “a glorious image of God” and focused on fulfilling His purpose.