Seeing Ourselves in Others

Sometimes, we see in others things about ourselves that we may or may not like. I came across this picture this morning while I was scanning the interwebs, as the kids say these days, and it got me thinking...

What do we see in other people that reflects back on us? Sometimes we don't get along with people because they accentuate the things about ourselves that we don't like. Sometimes the opposite is true and we are drawn to people who reflect characteristics that we think we lack. That is certainly a question that we have to wrestle with, but perhaps it's not the most important question that we need to ask.

Maybe the more important question for us to ask is: What are we doing in other people's lives to make a positive reflection? What kind of impact are we making, and what is the legacy that we are leaving behind?

Strangely enough, this is the second time this week that I've come across this question. The other night, I was doing my daily Bible reading, and came across this passage:

And after all this the Lord struck him in his bowels with an incurable disease. In the course of time, at the end of two years, his bowels came out because of the disease, and he died in great agony. His people made no fire in his honor, like the fires made for his fathers. He was thirty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. And he departed with no one's regret. They buried him in the city of David, but not in the tombs of the kings. - 2 Chronicles 21:18-20

The passage comes at the end of a chapter on Jehoram, a king of Judah. Jehoram was the son of Jehoshaphat, and the beginning of his reign should have been a major red flag for the people of Judah. Once he was established on the throne, he killed his brothers. It is also said that he walked in the ways of Ahab. No, not that Ahab, the one in the Old Testament, who was outrageously unfaithful to God and a horrible man.

The story of his death here in 2 Chronicles reminds me of stories in Italy after Mussolini was executed near the end of World War II. After his body was shot, kicked and spat on, it was hung out at a gas station where the people threw rocks at it before he was buried in an unmarked grave. People will know his name throughout all history, but probably not in the way that he imagined it. He was hated by the very people that he was supposed to lead. The reflections of Mussolini are not good.

Likewise, nobody missed Jehoram when he was gone, as the writer of Chronicles tells us. He was a horrible person. He led the people of God astray, and he was not missed. "He departed with no one's regret."

Remember with each decision you make, you are building your legacy. Nobody ever says bad things at a funeral... they just think them.