One of the marks of expensive glass, a costly mirror, and even quality eye glasses is the absence of distortion. Such quality glass is spoken of as being homogeneous with no strain, striations, or discolorations. The temperature elevations in heating, the length of stirring, the chemicals added, and the rate of cooling are all factors in creating quality glass. In fact, the greatest reflecting or refractive telescopes rely on glass that must be free of any known distortion.

Presently, the limits of creating giant reflective mirrors which accurately capture the light of the most distant stars, and which are distortion free, has not exceeded a diameter of 236 inches. That telescopic mirror is located in the Zelenchukskaya Observatory, situated in the Caucasus Mountains of Russia.

The past record was set by the 200-inch reflector used in the Hale Observatory at Los Angeles. It was the plan of George Ellery Hale, one of America's great astronomers, to construct what was in 1934 the world's largest telescope to be placed on Mt. Wilson. It was to be manufactured by the Corning Glass Works of Corning, New York, out of the heat resistant glass called Pyrex. Prior to that telescopic glass had been made of plate glass which had the ability to expand and contract and therefore produced distortions. The first attempt at creating this 200-inch, 20 ton disc failed after cooling and hardening for a period of four weeks. The second attempt succeeded after cooling for 10 months. It took sixteen days, at 25 m.p.h. to be moved from New York to California. In California, the glass disc was ground and polished removing five tons of its total weight.

The Bible states that we can see the reflected glory of the Lord, as in a mirror (II Corinthians 3:18). The disciples, on the Mt. of Transfiguration saw that glory. Peter, James, and John were uniquely chosen to be present and catch a glimpse of the greatness of the Lord's glory. John, in his gospel, states, "We beheld His glory."

There is absolutely no distortion in the divine mirror that reflects the glory of the Lord. God has provided sixty-six books, comprising the whole of the Bible, to precisely and correctly reflect all that He is in truth. God's mirror captures all the light of God's holiness, purity, grace, mercy, kindness, power, and love! God's mirror was transported the greatest of distances, from heaven to earth. However, in order to capture all the light of God's being, the divine mirror only needed to be the size of man, for as John states, "He dwelt among us." No second attempts were necessary and no polishing was required for God to display His glory as fully revealed in Jesus Christ. The glory of God was distortion free and therefore John states that Jesus was "full of grace and truth."

When we accurately and clearly see the Lord's glory it is designed to change us! When we look into that divine mirror God states that we are changed from "glory to glory." That is, His glory becomes our glory. However, it is only as we behold the glory of the Lord that such change can take place. If we are not changed it is because we are no looking into that glass which mirrors His glory. We are holding onto our own distorted human images of what God is like. Are you changing and becoming more like Jesus? Would you like His kindness, peace, grace, purity, or love? Then we must take the time, day after day, to behold the Lord's undistorted reflection!