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Remember playing with silly putty, or maybe you bought it for your kids or grandkids?  Remember its unique qualities?  You could stretch it ....  I mean REALLY stretch it!! -  a L O N G way before it would snap.  You could roll it into a ball and bounce it.  You could flatten it so very, 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 puddle.

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 - financially, emotionally, physically - 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 - 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.

by P.J. Pettit
8/30/02

Psalm 37:4
Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 42:1
... As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.

Psalm 73:25
Whom have I in heaven but you?  And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

Psalm 116:1
I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy.

Matthew 22:37
Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'

John 17:26
I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."

2 Tim. 2:22
Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.