Silly Putty

And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.

John 17:26

Remember playing with silly putty as a kid? And do you remember its unique qualities? You could stretch it… really stretch it a long way before it would snap. You could roll it into a ball and bounce it. You could flatten it so very thin and it would still hold together. It just kept getting thinner—so thin that you could see through it. Then, if you left it alone it lost any shape you may have given it and “melted” into a blob. Remember how it would even take on the picture of the Sunday funnies as you pressed it upon the paper? When you peeled it up there was a perfect mirror image of what the putty had been in contact with.

We can be like that silly putty. God has created us to be pliable, resilient, moldable—able to take on His characteristics and become a mirror image of Himself to the world around us. We need to look at ourselves. Have we been stretched—sometimes far beyond what we ever thought we could endure? Have we been brought low at times—spiritually, emotionally, physically, financially —so low that we had to reach out for God's help and become completely transparent to Him and to ourselves? Have we had times when we bounced from one thing to another hoping to “land” in the right place, or hoping the right thing or circumstance or person would stop our bouncing? Have we been pressed against something or someone and come up with the image of them printed all over us?

Whose influence is stamped on our lives for those around us to see? Unlike the silly putty which only retained the likeness on the surface, we take the influence into our minds and spirits. What we associate with, our thoughts and meditations show plainly to all who look at us—a mirror image of what resides in our hearts. As we fill our time—our thoughts and our desires—with God and focus on His Word, the image we present to others will be more and more like the image of our Heavenly Father.