This Could Be The Start Of Something Big: Looking Back Series

This Could Be the Start of Something Big:

Looking Back

I Peter 1:3-16

1 Peter 1:3-16

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade-- kept in heaven for you,

5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

7 These have come so that your faith-- of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-- may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,

9 for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care,

11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.

14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.

15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;

16 for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

(NIV)

Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.

The rear-view mirror’s earliest known use and mention is by Dorothy Levitt in her 1906 book The Woman and the Car which noted that women should "carry a little hand-mirror in a convenient place when driving" so they may "hold the mirror aloft from time to time in order to see behind while driving in traffic", thereby inventing the rear view mirror before it was introduced by manufacturers in 1914. The earliest known rear-view mirror mounted on a motor vehicle appeared in Ray Harroun’s Marmon racecar at the inaugural Indianapolis 500 race in 1911. Although Harroun’s is the first known use of such a mirror on a motor vehicle, Harroun himself claimed he got the idea from seeing a mirror used for the same purpose on a horse-drawn vehicle in 1904.

In the United States and Canada, passenger-side mirrors have this text written on the lower part of the mirror:

Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

This is because passenger-side mirrors are convex to allow the drivers to get a wide-angle view of the road—behind them, and to the sides — but at the same time, they cause objects to appear more distant. Since smaller objects appear farther away, the objects seen in the mirror look further away than they really are. If the driver does not consider this, they might make a maneuver (such as a lane change) assuming another vehicle was a safe distance behind, when in fact it was quite a bit closer. The warning is there to remind the driver of this potential problem.

The flat mirror used on driver’s-side mirrors, on the other hand, would not cause the same distortion.

As we embark on this new year, we need to take into account what is behind us because Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.

The past impacts the present.

There once was a parakeet named Chippie. Chippie was like most parakeets: happy, singing, bringing a smile to everyone who came to Chippie’s cage. One day, the woman who owned Chippie decided to clean up the seeds and loose feathers at the bottom of his cage. Since she didn’t really have much time, she thought her vacuum cleaner would make fast work of the cleaning task. She turned the vacuum on, opened Chippie’s cage door, and shoved the hose into the cage. Just then, the phone rang. The owner turned to answer it and with a thud and a swoosh, Chippie was gone!

The owner quickly turned off the vacuum and unzipped the bag. There was Chippie, covered with dust, stunned but breathing.