What Image Are You Reflecting?

I woke up like any ordinary day. But it wasn’t just any day. Is it a coincidence that on my birthday the Psalm I would read would have this prayer?

“Lord, reveal to me the end of my life and the number of my days. Let me know how short-lived I am. You, indeed, have made my days short in length, and my life span as nothing in Your sight. Yes, every mortal man is only a vapor.” (Psalm 39:4-5, HCSB)

We blink, and time has already passed. Another birthday comes and goes. The older you become, the faster time seems to tick-tock, tick-tock. 

But as the Psalm continues into the next verse, there is a warning. The issue isn’t so much that life is fleeting—here and then gone like a vapor, a breath, all vanity. The issue is how we live out the number of our days—who we are becoming in the mere handbreadth (four inches!) of time we are given.

Different translations better encompass this warning in Psalm 39:6:

“Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom; in vain they rush about, heaping up wealth without knowing whose it will finally be.” (NIV)

“We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing. We heap up wealth, not knowing who will spend it.” (NTL)

“Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.” (KVJ)

“Certainly, man walks about like a mere shadow. Indeed, they frantically rush around in vain, gathering possessions without knowing who will get them.” (HCSB)

“Be yourself” can never truly be, for we are all mere phantoms—shadows and reflections of something, or someone, else. The question is: of what? 

That Hebrew word for “vain shew” comes down to “image.” Every human is a walking image. Dig deeper, and that same word is also used to describe an idol. Scripture repeatedly warns what happens when the images we pursue becomes idols:

“They will throw their money in the streets, tossing it out like worthless trash. Their silver and gold won’t save them on the day of the Lord’s anger. It will neither satisfy nor feed them, for their greed can only trip them up. 

“They were proud of their beautiful jewelry and used it to make detestable idols and vile images. Therefore, I will make all their wealth disgusting to them.” (Ezekiel 7:19-20, NLT)

King David describes humanity as restless and disquieted—rushing through life in constant commotion, tumult, an uproar. Whether it’s the loud voices in our heads—“Do more!” “Be like that!” “You must have this!”—or the outward cries of “Look at me!” “Here is my opinion!” “You’re gonna hear me roar!” 

And all for what? To look more like the idols we are chasing. Shadows of the images we try so hard to look like, act like, and possess. “Those who make idols are just like them, as are all who trust in them.” (Psalm 115:8, NLT) 

We are never really “ourselves.” We become reflections of the idols we worship—love, acceptance, beauty, significance, power, value, comfort, pleasure—

But they are only illusions of the real Image. 

That same Hebrew word for “vain shew” is used elsewhere to reveal another Image:

“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…’ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:26a, 27, NKJV)

This Image is the only True Representation. It’s how we become our real selves—selves that will never fade, age, or leave us empty, wanting, rushing, and roaring. 

Throughout the generations, we’ve progressed from polished stones, to glass mirrors, to Photoshop, to selfie filters, to phone-camera “clean ups,” to AI. Yet the irony is that the more we strive to perfect our image, the more our truest selves erode—until what remains is superficial and artificial. 

Rather creating our own image, we were created to resemble something eternal, imperishable, and full of glory. More specifically, it’s the Who we were created to reflect.

“We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18, HCSB)

As the years of my life tick by, I must ask how I’m living out the number of days only the Lord knows. When I look into the mirror of my life, what image is staring back—vanity, futility, and emptiness? Or am I becoming another Image?

Am I fooled by the world’s mirage to look younger, live longer, achieve more, and store away excess, when all of this is actually, slowly—and sadly quickly—killing us? This Psalm holds the answer to life; it’s not about how long we live, but the image we reflect in the shortness of life.

I’ve stepped into a new decade, and the realization struck me that I have lived the number of years that the Israelites wandered in the desert before stepping into their Promised Land. The words the Lord told Moses to tell the Israelites are His words speaking to me…

“When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, you must drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you, destroy all their stone images and cast images, and demolish their high places.” (Numbers 33:51-52, HCSB)

This year, on my birthday, I woke up with a new resolve—to destroy the images I’ve been frantically pursuing that will only ever be short-lived vanity. And to step out of the endless wandering and into the everlasting peace and glory promised to those…

who reflect the one True Image.