It’s 2012, and we are well into this year already. What you do you think awaits you in the remainder of this year? Nobody knows for sure, right?

Have you perchance heard about the famous Mayan prophecy that supposedly predicts global disaster near the end of this year? Do these rumors have you worried?

According to the Mayan calendar, the 21st of December of this year completes the last day of the 13th “bactun.” (A “bactun” is a Mayan unit of time equal to 144,000 days, or about 400 years in our calendar.) After that, what will happen? Will one “bactun” end and another begin, or will the world come to an end? Will the sun rise on the morning of the 22nd of December?

For the moment, lets forget about debatable things like Mayan prophecies, and consider an irrefutable fact: A LOT of us die every year! In fact, statistics indicate that about 55.3 million of us die per year [source: The World Factbook]. This means that for about 53 million of us, whether or not the world comes to an end on December 21 will be completely irrelevant. Because by then about 53 million of us will already have died this year. For those millions of people, the sun in fact will not rise in the east on the morning of December 22.

“But, I’m not going to die in 2012!” Let me remind you that very few of us think we are going to die in 2012. But the fact remains that approximately 55.3 million of us will leave this planet this year, whether we plan to do so or not.

What awaits you in 2012? I hope to God that peace and goodwill await you. If you live a life of repentance, obedience and faith in Jesus, then I assure you that peace and goodwill await you in what remains of 2012, “with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life” (Mark 10:30).

The return of Christ gets closer all the time. Will He return before the 21st of this year, or will He return after that date? We don’t know. But one thing is sure: “Ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away” (James 4:14).

Imagine the proverbial man who lives in a room of mirrors. No matter which way he turns, everything points back to himself.

And it’s a view he’s very content with—because he’s delighted to be the center of his universe. If he looks north, the view is graced with...himself. To the south...himself. East and west reflect the same image.

The man of the mirrors is content in his own glory—until the day a longing, vague and ill-defined, taunts him with hints of life beyond the mirrors.

This Mr. Ego is a narcissist, though, and not quickly shaken. Still, with passing years and building despair, the crisis comes, and in ultimate desperation, he cries out to the world beyond his mirrors.

He meets the Man who breaks the mirrored cell as a Liberator—and indeed, He is!

To the north is a limitless expanse of meadows, trees and beauty. To the east is the ocean and the rising sun. To the south are inviting paths, happy homes, and busy villages. To the west are smiling faces, cheerful children and gracious friends. This is the world beyond the broken mirror.

We’ve all been as foolish as the man of the mirrors. We’ve imprisoned ourselves by our own visions of self-aggrandizement; we’ve lived preoccupied with ourselves; we’ve embezzled God’s great gift of life and spent it on ourselves.

And only God can convince us that our walls are confining, and that there is life beyond self. At first, the very idea of the world beyond self is strange to us. Then it teases us, and ultimately torments us. The tug of the infinite trounces the tawdry cheapness of the mirrored room.

“For none of us liveth to himself” (Romans 14:7).

The advent of the gospel in our lives demands the end of the mirrors—it dares to shatter them without apology. The call of the Liberator, Jesus, is for Mr. Ego to “deny [utterly disown] himself.” He goes even further, insisting that self must die—and die by crucifixion.

This Liberator re-defines virtue, too. Instead of self-gratification and self-esteem, He gives us three true virtues: love, faith and hope (see 1 Corinthians 13:13). These are like the great, expansive vistas outside the broken room of mirrors.

With love we discover others. Love introduces us to a world of relationships, of joyful interaction and creative self-abandonment. With love, we become givers. With love, we share. With love, we uplift others. And with love, we forget ourselves—and our old mirror prison.

With faith we discover God. Faith is God-focused. We worship our Liberator—instead of haunting the temple of our sacrilegious self-worship. We live for God alone, we love God first, and we abandon self for God.

With hope we discover the infinite. Outside our room of mirrors, we begin our journey into an eternal future. Freed, God calls us to journey from our prison into His permanent, built-for-forever kingdom. Transience and temporal living are forgotten, and the things and virtues of God become eternally worth our investments.

I suspect you know where you live. If it’s in a room of mirrors, then you’re imprisoned.

But if God has broken your cell, and you have escaped the bondage of self, then the vistas beyond the broken mirror are yours.

Let God liberate self, and let Him teach you how to live in the freedom of love, discovering faith, and journeying with hope.

The artisan hunches over a block of wood. He whittles out a grotesque figure about two feet tall. Then he falls down and worships it. We call that an idol, and spell his god with a small "g".

Small gods are easily controlled. On special occasions they can be dressed up and carried about the streets on floats. Their worshipers may burn incense and sing to them. Some gods are quite cruel and demanding at times. But the handy thing about small gods is that they can be carried back into their temples and forgotten for long periods at a time.

But our God Jehovah is great. "Heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain (Him)" (2 Chronicles 6:18). "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain . . . Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand . . . and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales . . . the nations are as a drop of a bucket . . . as the small dust of the balance" (Isaiah 40:22, 12, 15). No one controls Jehovah. It is He that controls. "Our God is in the heavens, He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased" (Psalm 115:3).

What God do you worship? One you can control? Does he stay where you set him? Or is your God big enough to set you straight?

Modern concepts of God make Him more like an idol than the Lord God. If you can worship him on Sunday and live life your own way the rest of the week; if he stays meekly at church while you decide whom to date, what car to drive, how to make a living, what home to own, where to go to school, and how to dress, all by yourself, then you are worshiping a very small god. God will not be whittled down to our size. And only those whom He controls are truly worshiping Him.

A big God is not one to be scared of. Christ invites us to learn of Him, that He is meek and lowly. (Matthew 11:29) Isaiah 40 describes not only the great God but the personal God: "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young." (verse 11)

It might seem convenient to have a god we can control while we think we can take care of ourselves. But when it comes time to die, I'm sure we will all want one big enough to see us safely through the valley of the shadow of death to the home He has promised to those that serve Him. To have a big God then, we must serve the Great God now.