Just Answer the Question by Lorraine Triggs

I am a terrible test-taker. In high school I approached every exam with high hopes that I would ace the exam, until I saw the multiple-choice questions with choices A, B, C or D—and things would go downhill from there.

I’d re-read the question, think, well, if the question said that; then A would be right. Or what if that happened, and then C would be right. Essay exams held more potential, until I would read the question and think, you’ve got to be kidding and proceed to explain the real point of the book. Any cajoling from the teachers to just answer the question that was being asked, to me, clearly showed a lack of imagination as I continued my defiant test-taking habits in college.

The most important question in life, however, is not multiple choice or even an essay. It’s the question the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Their reply was straightforward: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16:30-31)

There is something, however, in rebellious test-takers like me—or just the plain rebellious—that wants to turn the jailer’s question into a multiple-choice answer.

Question 1—What must one do to be saved? Believe in the Lord Jesus and

a. family

b. politics

c. education

d. success

e. all of the above

Scripture remains steadfast in its answer: Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. So, why are we so steadfast in our attempts to add to our salvation? Part of me wants to blame the educational system that ingrained in us the mentality that hard work is rewarded with good grades, early acceptance to college and success in the real world. All this, however, sidetracks from our heart issue, our pride that gets in the way of the free gift of salvation. The true answer isn’t even on the test.

Question 2—The free gift of salvation is

a. not like the trespass

b. not like the result of one’s man sin

c. through one man’s act of righteousness

d. all of the above

Paul said it better than any of us ever will when he wrote, “because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.” (Romans 5:17-18)

It’s the little word “all” that creates dissonance for, well, for all of us. To those who don’t believe, it’s hard to hear that all are sinners, all condemned. To those who believe, it’s hard to hear that God’s mercy is for all, all those “who-so-evers” who believe will be saved.

In a recent Bible study lesson, a question said to read Romans 11:33-36. Naturally, being the compliant, dutiful student that I am, I read verse 32: “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.”

Paul had no dissonance between condemnation and mercy because it always has been and always will be all God—not a result of our multiple choice answers lest any of us boasts that we aced the test, since we would all flunk it apart from his mercy.

Yes, I did read Romans 11:33-36—Paul’s lyrical doxology to God, rich in mercy, lavish in love, beyond our understanding.

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
For who has known the mind of the Lord,
    or who has been his counselor?”
 “Or who has given a gift to him
    that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. 

All or Nothing by Wil Triggs

I am not a negative person. I am not motivated by criticism. And I think I’m not alone in wanting to focus on the positive. It is easy to think about how God made us and gifted us for unique contributions to the world around us. It’s really pretty amazing. When we develop these God-given gifts properly, those around us can benefit with time. We could possibly even become known for our skills and gifts. Give it our best and we might succeed beyond our wildest dreams.

But there are limits to all this positivity.

“To deny that life has its share of disappointments, frustrations, losses, hurts, setbacks, and sadness would be unrealistic and untenable,” writes Robert Emmons in an article published in The Atlantic during the COVID pandemic. “Life is suffering. No amount of positive thinking exercises will change this truth.”

So, no matter how much we develop the gifts God uniquely gave us, those things are not going to save our souls. God, who gave us these good gifts, loves those aspects of who we are, but they aren’t salvific. They cannot keep us from hard things.

Actually, it was the hardest things in their lives that brought nameless people to God in the gospels. They were desperate. Maybe we should consider being a little more desperate ourselves.

In the Bible, people often appear in their weakest, most troubled, imperfect states—the paralytic, the woman with the issue of blood, the man blind since birth, the beggar by the pool, the centurion with the dying son, the demon-possessed man, the dead little girl. We know them not by their names, but by their troubles.

And there are other people who were reviled just because of who they were—the Samaritan, tax collector, the prostitute, the Sadducee in the eyes of the Pharisee and the other way around, the people Jesus had dinner with that were not the right people. Others are identified by proximity to something else—the woman at the well, the man named Saul who held cloaks when the others murdered Stephen.

If people knew us by the weakest links in our chains, how would we be described?

The covetous woman.

The pornography-addicted man.

The man with the inoperable tumor.

The executive who can’t stop working.

The person suffering with something for which modern medicine has no cure.

The child abused for years.

The student with no friends.

The student ruled by his group of friends.

The person whose best friend is a chatbot.

The old people with no family to care for them.

The one who just lost a week’s wage betting away his earning.

The dad who has lost his way.

The mom who stopped caring.

The student who hates his life.

The single who longs for a spouse.

The newly married people who think they’ve just made the biggest mistake of their lives.

The list can go on and on. Each one of us has some sin or failure that we think might be about to swallow us whole. Fill in your blank. We all have at least one.

When we come face-to-face with our weakest links, we try hard to atone for our shortcomings. A person could spend a lifetime trying to overcome them. But nothing of eternal impact is to be done but to cry out, “Jesus of Nazareth have mercy on us.”

Jesus’ miracles lasted. They weren’t just to demonstrate that he was extraordinarily God. The woman with the issue of blood did not start bleeding again the next day. The demons that went into the pigs did not come back. But the people did not become sinless. They were never people without sin. He changes us for real. Holy hope has lasting power well beyond the messes we make, even the ones we keep making.

After Jesus ascended to heaven, I wonder if the people he healed were part of the early church. Did they tell firsthand stories of being healed by him? Surely Lazarus must have recounted his own resurrection, but what about the other nameless ones?

How can we bear witness to the miracles and the rescuing power of Jesus where zero percent of the credit for the good in us gets applied to us and all is given to him? Instead of being known for the weakest link in life, we can be known for the eternal link of grace between us and the Savior.

All for Jesus, all for Jesus!
All my being’s ransomed pow’rs:
All my thoughts and words and doings,
All my days and all my hours.

Love and Happiness this Valentine's Day

Who knew that all it would take to find happiness and love was a good set of social skills? I can only imagine the angst I would have been spared if I had known this in middle school on Valentine’s Day.

Catherine Pearson, a reporter who writes about families and relationships, titled a recent article for The New York Times, “What’s the Secret to Happiness? These Researchers Have a Theory.” (February 10, 2026) Pearson talked with Dr. Sonya Lyubomirsky, a leading researcher on the science of happiness, who co-authored the book How to Feel Loved with Dr. Harry Reis.

Pearson explained that research on love and happiness “has tended to focus on the love one feels for others. But in fact, Dr. Lyubomirsky and Dr. Reis argue in their book, what really makes us happy is how much love we feel coming back to us.”

To feel the love, the good doctors advise not to “focus your energy on trying to change anyone. Instead, change the conversations you’re having.”  They recommend becoming a better listener to help make the person feel loved. And if that doesn’t work, know when to throw in the towel.

Writes Pearson, “Of course, sometimes you can do your best to listen and be open, and the other person gives you zilch in return. If that’s the case—or if you are finding it challenging to muster genuine curiosity [in the person]—those are signs this isn’t the right relationship to invest a lot of effort and energy in.”

God loved us when we had zilch to return. I wonder if Paul was remembering his old hate-filled, self-righteous self when he wrote to the church in Rome, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) And then he was astounded all over again by this love when he wrote these lyrical words: “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

God also loves us when we think we have a lot to bring to the table. He loves us when we are proud that we are not like those sinners out there—and we might not say this part out loud—but isn’t God lucky to have us. It’s when we come empty-handed to another table, simply set with a cup and bread, that we remember and are amazed all over again at the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love.

It’s a grace that God doesn’t need our relationship advice. If he did, he would have thrown in the towel a long time ago. Instead, his beloved Son picked up the towel and washed his followers’ feet, including one pair that would run off into the darkness of betrayal, and another to the despair of denial, and even then, he loved them to the end. (John 13:1)

Love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.

Wintergarden by Wil Triggs

In the shortest days of the year, very little grows. The tulip and the garlic that I planted in autumn are fast asleep. They could be dead for all I know. They are still buried. The temperature outside hovers in the teens, and those are the highs. I don’t even want to talk about the lows. Snow seems like it has a different crunch when it’s below zero as opposed to the kind I shovel when it heats up by twenty degrees but is still below freezing.

Words are the beloved garden sanctuary where I know and grow new things and try to make sense of hard things. Even and especially in the winter.

It was the first day of the school term. The children came to the school with bunches of flowers. That’s just what they do in that part of the world. Part holiday, part class, the first day is a kind of party. So, it wasn’t just an ordinary school day but a celebration of learning and new beginnings.

The men came all in black, faces covered, guns and ammunition slung over their arms like the old farm ladies in the market with their shopping bags. But there was no food in their bags, only the machinery and mechanics of death. The children would not be going home from school that day.

The whole world watched what happened. And then almost everybody forgot. We watched and we forgot. But God saw it all and never forgot a single moment.

Sowing. I cast the seed-words onto the paper, into snow or winter mud. There is work to be done in that garden—weeds to pull, plants to be moved, detritus to be raked or dug in. With sun and rain, plants grow, but yes, there is much to tend to and much to think about. For now, though, none of those warm weather activities are possible.

Will I plant from seed or go to the nursery to grow the plants I have in mind for the summer?

The sound of the blade whirring, hatred taking flight, softly whistling through the air, the sound like a song he could hear and learn and know by heart, having heard it so many times before, landing on his scarred and bleeding back because he was not what they wanted him to be—would never, could never know anything else but the rise and fall of the whipping branch that told him this was not the way. No! No more! So, after nine years, he ran back to his father and mother who saw only in his coming back the shame in his failure to be the monk they so badly wanted him to be because he never properly learned anything one needed to learn in the real world while he was failing in the monastery, the growing boy had to start school with children much younger than he. The teacher was kind to him. Maybe for the first time in his life, he could learn. He could breathe. John. Sixteen. Three. God. Loved so much. He gave…

Lorraine’s roses. Will they survive the heaving ice of winter? What of the aggressive rabbits—she’s projecting into spring—who seem to have taken to them like the latest green craze for their seasonal salad feast. And the lavender plants. Every year she watches over them, convinced that she has done something wrong and that they will not live. “They will die. This is the year they won’t make it,” she fears. We won’t know for sure until spring, I reassure her. And so far, every spring, green appears, stubbornly waking up as if to say “I am from the Mediterranean. But I’m growing in the Midwest. It’s going to be alright. There will be flowers.” 

When he took home the black-bound book, his father caught him reading it. “No,” his dad cried out in rage. What was wrong with his son? The dad cut a switch from a tree and made his own mark on the already scarred back. So, he left his father and mother. He did not know where to go. But the teacher took him on a moped to church. He had never before seen anything like it. The real singing. The real praying. The teaching, the love. This family found him, a whole church found him. He was home. He was free.

Seeds. In the warmth of my home, I take a small pot, fill it from the bag of potting soil, sprinkle some herb seeds on the top, add a little more soil, pour water on and wait. Will they sprout and take hold? This is the wonder of it. They will. Water, soil, seed, sun, time—poof—plants. Those little dried pieces that seem almost like nothing actually turn into plants. 

The senior class of the all-girls high school was singing with excitement. Dreaming of possibilities, each one had selected elegant clothes to wear for the events soon to come. All of those ended when the men arrived in a caravan of horror. The girls were taken away at gunpoint. Death was near, always near, or things worse than death—lives marked by captivity, exile, shame and the call to recant, renounce, revile what they loved.

Easy. Simplest plant on earth to grow. My friend is explaining to me how to grow potatoes. I have only tried once or twice and something didn’t work. All you have to do is take one and cut it into pieces. Make sure that each piece has an eye and put dirt over it. Some people cover with straw or mulch. As it grows, keep the plant covered. It wants to grow so badly you could grow one in a bag. “You’ll get the hang of it,” he says to me. “They will literally grow everywhere.” 

And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.”  Then all who believed were together and had all things in common. Then those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. Then there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” [Matthew 28; Acts 2; Acts 11; Acts 10]

God’s Word for us, to us—rescuing, saving—with us through everything, no matter what happens today, in this very moment, as I write and you read, sharper than any sword that might be wielded at us. Read on and find whatever you need for this day.

The Allure of the New by Lorraie Triggs

For some people, it’s the allure of a new car; for us, it’s the allure of a new coffee machine.

Among our assorted ways to brew coffee, a drip coffee maker is conspicuous in its absence. I didn’t think we needed a new drip coffee maker, until one caught our attention. It “combines the art of hand-brewing with the convenience of automation, so every cup is smooth, rich, and perfectly balanced.” The review promised that this coffee maker simply brews exceptional coffee exactly the way you like it—single brew or batch. Suddenly, I envisioned this coffee maker, in its newest color of chocolate malt, on my kitchen counter, replacing the old coffee maker that was perfectly fine twenty-four hours ago.

The allure of the new is as old as humankind. In the newly fashioned garden, the serpent offered the man and the woman something new, something better, something different from what God had designed for his first image-bearers. And image-bearers ever since have been lured by the same offer of the new, the different, the bigger, the better—only to be caught in an endless, dissatisfying loop we strive to fill with the next new, different, bigger or better things. Just ask the Preacher: “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” (Ecclesiastes 1:1)

That loop is the God-shaped vacuum often attributed to French philosopher Blaise Pascal. In fact, Pascal described the loop as an infinite abyss that “can only be filled with something that is infinite and unchanging—in other words, God himself. God alone is our true good.” (from Pensées #425)

It is out of his overflowing goodness and lovingkindness that God fills the abyss and breaks the loop with all things new. To his people in exile, under the old covenant, he says, “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:18-19)

To those of us who might feel a pull toward that infinite loop of wanting something new, something different, something better, the Apostle Paul reminds us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come.” (2 Corinthains 5:17) In commenting on this verse, Kent Hughes points out that it’s a “newness that is everlastingly new; because the old is done, the new has come to stay.”

This newness makes ways in the wilderness and rivers in the desert now as well as in the new heavens and earth to come. And makes it just fine that the chocolate malt drip coffee maker—or the next new thing—remains conspicuously absent from my kitchen counter and my life.

Earthly Good of the Heavenly Mind by Wil Triggs

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Col. 3:2

I wasn’t meant to hear it, but I did. 

“What did you say?” I asked.

They averted their eyes. I had heard them. They were pretty sure that I had, too. What they said was, “They’re so heavenly minded, they’re no earthly good.”

Looking back, I think those men might have been talking about me. You know when people are talking, and then they see you and look away, as if they haven’t been talking?

In my early Christian life, I found myself bringing Jesus or prayer or something I had just read from the Bible into discussions where those critics didn’t think such things belonged. 

There he goes again. He doesn’t know any better; he’s just a kid. He’ll grow out of it.

Around the same time this happened, Mr. Edmonds, the husband of my mom’s friend at work, suddenly collapsed. They thought he would die. My mom became preoccupied with his health. At night, she would call her friend, who wasn’t going into work, to see how he was doing. Even though we did not attend church every week, my mom assured her friend of her prayers and concern.

He ended up living but was confined to a wheelchair. To help them out, my mom drove me over to their house where I would mow their lawn and do whatever else they needed.

I don’t think Mr. Edmonds liked me much at first. Actually, it wasn’t me, but I sensed resentment. He resented that he even had to ask for help, that he could not do what he was asking me to do. I admired the yard and garden equipment in his garage; this was something he had liked doing. He wanted to get up out of his wheelchair and do it himself. We both knew that he could have done the jobs he was giving me faster and better than I ever did. 

Except he could not walk. 

Mine was a different despair. I was tasked with digging out his pachysandra groundcover they had in one of their flowerbeds. The dug-out plants filled trash bags and was heavy work, not difficult, but really getting all the roots out seemed impossible. It just kept coming back. More stubborn than ivy or and dense as the most invasive ornamental grass. No matter how many roots I pulled, there were more roots underground than I could possibly pull or dig out. This was a task that I couldn’t imagine even Mr. Edmonds would have wanted to do himself. But he watched me work from the window.

I remember pulling and digging and pulling and digging at the pachysandra entrenched in the dirt. While I attacked the invader, I wondered about those men’s critique of “religious” people. No earthly good. People just thinking about heaven, about the God those men did not believe. What a waste, I could feel their mocking, their looking down on a youthful curiosity and enthusiasm about faith as some kind of association with inactivity. But I also wanted to think about heaven. I couldn’t help it.

There I was. My hands literally in the earth, doing yard work for a man who could no longer do it himself, worrying about the critique of thinking about heaven as somehow stopping me from earthly good. For Mr. Edmonds, my attempts to clean up his yard was doing earthly good. I was helping him. 

But what I did not appreciate in the moment was that he was also helping me. This was God at work in both of us.

There is always the chance of being so earthly minded that a person might not be any heavenly good. The critique may be valid, or it could be a smokescreen for people who don’t want to think about heaven or anything on earth that is not right in front of them.

Truth be told, the heavenly and the earthly are fused in ways that we can’t see most of the time. But the life, death and resurrection of Jesus demonstrate for us that being heavenly minded can ultimately do the greatest of all earthly good.

Mr. Edmonds was kind to me, making sure I took breaks with lemonade, sweets and fruit. But I could feel his anguish and despair. He wished he could do what he watched me do for him. We became friends. He wrote references for me. Sometimes, he listened to me talk about my faith. He didn’t look down on me because of what I believed. We also talked about books—his interests were quite different from mine. That was okay. We didn’t have to be like one another to listen and respect the other person. 

True good is both earthly and heavenly. It’s pulling weeds for a man who cannot walk. It’s giving hard work to a young man just starting out. You do such things without knowing for sure how it’s going to turn out. And it’s talking and thinking about heaven and its king at the same time as you do such things. By the grace of God, do good, even when you can’t stand up on your own or dig out all the groundcover or stop people speaking ill of you because Jesus is changing you into something new that you or they have never before seen.

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. Matthew 6:19-20

Losing My Voice in the New Year

It usually happens this way. Lorraine gets sick and after two or three days, she is well. A couple days after her recovery, I come down with what she had, but instead of three days, recovery seems to take three months for me. Oh well. At least it’s not three years.

This happened during the current sick season. Lorraine felt ill enough to stay home, which for her is like a hundred-year snow event. I started to feel symptoms before she recovered fully. I seemed okay when we went to work this morning. In the staff kitchenette one of my co-workers said I sounded “a little throaty,” but by the time staff meeting rolled around and it was my turn to talk about what I’m working on, sounds came out of my mouth.

I looked up. Everyone was very kind, but I could tell by their expressions what they were thinking. Wil sounds like Linda Blair in The Exorcist minus the cursing.

Every year it seems that at least once, I’m confronted with a pretty horrific literal physical voice.

So, then I go to see our new doctor. The old one retired but before he did so, he was trying to tell us that oranges are bad to eat. Oranges. I grew up in southern California before the locusts of lower cost housing tracts ate up all the orange groves. Back then it was farm country. A peeled orange was nature’s vitamin boost that tasted better than just about anything. Well, ok, not counting See’s candy.

But this new doctor—he’s not anti-orange. In one of my first visits with him, I fumbled through my coat pocket and pulled out a jar of hot fudge sauce. Handing it to him, I explained, “We make this every Christmas and give it away.” He takes it, not quite sure what to say. It’s not a bribe, just a little gift we share with friends. He says thanks in a way that says he doesn’t quite know what to say. But he’s in a hurry. He’s on the clock, time for the next person.

He’s married and he and his wife had their first baby back in the fall. A girl.

Then Lorraine went to see him. She found out he’s Roman Catholic in background but not practicing. They live in Batavia, but maybe they’ll move closer. Maybe he should think about it. He’s examining us, but we are learning about him, too.

So, this last Christmas, on another visit from me, he’s happy to see another jar of hot fudge sauce. He remembers it from the previous Christmas. He tells me the kind of ice cream he has at home that he’s going to put it on tonight and eat it.

It’s Jesus, I want to say. I mean, this good stuff—it’s because of Jesus.

I think about his coming to College Church. Maybe he’ll bring his family. Maybe God will enter the picture.

In my dream, he does come. He waits in line to drop off his daughter in kindergarten. I see him in men’s Bible study at a round table in a room that seems like the Crossings but somehow, it’s the Commons, too. He prays with people. His wife turns out to be even nicer than he. And there they all are in a pew in church. His kids are dedicated. He’s elected to some position at an annual meeting. But then he’s a missionary doctor in a country I don’t know, a place where it’s summer in winter, a place where there isn’t any snow. And then he shows up in the dead of winter to treat someone at a free clinic by the little church I know in Maloyaroslavets, Russia, where we used to volunteer in summer camps with the children, but it’s snowing and so cold that when I’m walking on the path to the apartment where we’re living, my exhaled breath turns to icicles that fall to the ground and shatter on the pavement. I go to see the doctor, and he tells me to drink hot water with lemon and honey. You know how dreams can be.

“Don’t be afraid,” I want to say, when I see a person’s eyes go grey as soon as I start to speak of Jesus. God isn’t going to hurt you. It’s not like that.

Salvation is a jar of chocolate that you can’t buy in a store.

Whatever I dream of for James (the doctor’s first name)—I like to think someday I might call him Jim—is nothing compared to the good that God has in store. I can’t even dream it. But I do have a voice—even a raspy one—that can speak.

But “voice” isn’t only a sound; when it comes to grammar, voice can be active or passive. A seminary-grad friend of mine confessed to me that he never understood this concept. When he would show me something he had written and I told him that he had a lot of passive voice in it, which he always did, he confessed to me that he just could never get “that voice thing.”

With active voice, the subject does the action. Jesus died for my sins. Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus saves.

With passive voice, the subject does not do the action; the action is done to the subject. I am saved by grace. I am given faith to believe. I will be given words to speak when I do not know what to say.

I do manage to squeeze in that Lorraine and I are writing a book, a little Lent book. The doctor confesses that he doesn’t read as much as he should. And then he’s off to something or someone else. Will one of us have to get sick to give him a copy, or can we just show up?

It's not that Jesus needs me to save a person. Thank goodness that’s on him. After all, I am not even the subject of my life. That’s Jesus. He doesn’t need me; I need him. God’s voice speaks into my life. God’s voice speaks meaning and purpose.

“Therefore my people shall know my name. Therefore in that day they shall know that it is I who speak; here I am.”

How beautiful upon the mountains
    are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,
    who publishes salvation,
    who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

Isaiah 52:6-7

Will I find my voice in 2026? Will I sound like Linda Blair, or will I sing like James Taylor or Jamal Sarikoki? God can give me beautiful words. I have only to speak them to those around me.

The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice;
    together they sing for joy;
for eye to eye they see
    the return of the Lord to Zion.
Break forth together into singing,
    you waste places of Jerusalem,
for the Lord has comforted his people;
    he has redeemed Jerusalem.
Isaiah 52:8-9

Jesus, this year help my words and my life point people to your words, to your tree, your shepherd, your rescuer, your life, to the Living Word that makes all things new.

Here am I. Send me.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall by Lorraine Triggs

Mirrors—the unhung heroes of interior design. Writing for the “Wirecutter” feature in the New York Times, Ivy Elrod extols the virtues of a well-placed mirror.

“Small spaces, like tight hallways or entries, often lack abundant natural light. In such cases, a well-placed mirror can give the illusion of more space while helping to reflect and disperse what light there is. Hang your mirror on a wall across from a light source (like an adjacent window or lamp), and the reflection will bounce that glow into the rest of your space,” advises Elrod in her article, “You Don’t Need More Space. You Just Need More Mirrors.” (Published December 4, 2025, in the New York Times.)

Elrod consulted several interior designers and architects on their “favorite ways to employ mirrors, particularly when problem-solving dark or tight spaces.”

In his letter to scattered believers, James also referenced the potential effects of a mirror: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” (James 1:22-25)

Like a mirror, the Word lights dark spaces—the dark spaces of our souls—and by reflecting the truth of God’s character reveals the nature of our sins. That mirror can indeed be “problem-solving the dark or tight spaces” of our souls, unless we walk away and forget what we saw. God’s Word disperses light so we can see clearly the way he wants us to live—to be “a doer who acts.”

Interior designers, Elrod points out, also use light-reflecting mirrors to give a space a sense of expansiveness. Our God does more than give a sense of light or expansiveness to dark corners; he is the “Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). He is love’s pure light; his very nature is expansive.

In Romans 8:38-39, Paul’s words span extremes to describe God’s nature: “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

True to his expansive nature, God has given us the treasure of the “light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:4) A “doer who acts” and is not just “a hearer” carries this treasure, ironically, in ordinary jars of clay—perhaps worn, faded and cracked in places—so that his light will shine in the darkest spaces of the darkest places of the world.