I was walking through a store the other day, and did something that would have made me blush had anyone else been around. There was a table of baby gifts and decorations with a large sign on it. The entire sign was a giant picture of a baby with a huge look of surprise on her face. As I walked by I couldn’t help it, I looked at the picture and completely mimicked it. I raised my eyebrows, widened my eyes, and smiled at the picture. It…was…AWESOME. Here is a fully grown man walking through a store mimicking a baby on a sign.
That got me thinking though. I do that often. There was another time I saw someone blinking rapidly, and I began to do it too for no good reason. My eyes weren’t dry, It wasn’t like I was struggling not to cry, and for sure I don’t have an issue with rapid blinking. But, I couldn’t help it; I had to try it when I saw it.
All of this got me wondering, ‘do we do this naturally in life, or is it a learned process?’ I think it is natural. That really boils down to learning doesn’t it. How do we learn to talk? By mimicking our parents. How did we learn to walk? By watching, and then doing. It fits a pattern with everything we do naturally.
It’s no wonder then that we find ourselves following after the things we don’t even want to be doing. We see others doing things and we follow along. We hear how people talk, and we repeat it. We watch how the interact, and we learn to interact the same way.
The Bible warns us about this in Romans 12:2 when Paul says, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Don’t be conformed. In other words; don’t mimic the things you see in this world. The old sunday school song comes to mind. “Oh be careful little eyes what you see.” Why? Because we have a Father up above who is looking down with love. Why would that make us want to be careful what we see? Because a loving Father know’s what is best for us, what is bad for us, and what will eventually destroy us.
So the question is, “What then do we do?” We look up. Whatever we fix our eyes on we mimic. In 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 it says: 16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
When we look at the things which are not seen (Jesus) our spirit is being renewed day by day. What a promise, what a way to see what life is about. So as you go about your day today I pray that you would keep your eyes on things above, that God would be renewing you day by day, and that you would keep yourself unstained by the things of this world (James 1:27).
God Bless You.