Chasing shadows

Many years ago, not long after we were married, John and I went to Paris for a week.  One day we went to Monmatre.  It is a place famous for its artists.

It was a rainy day, and the square was quite empty, but an artist came up and asked if he could do our portraits.  He had a black piece of paper and a pair of scissors.   The picture on the right is me.  I've got shorted hair now, but back then, the likeness was spot on, anyone who knew me would have recognized me from the silhouette.

However, if John kept this picture in his wallet and pulled it out everyday spoke to it, kissed it, took it to the movies... that would be strange!!

The reasons is because it's not me!  It's a likeness (and a good one) but it's just my shadow.  From it you can recognize some things about me, but you can't know me from it.

So many things in the Word are like that.   They are shadows of things to come. We can look at them and see them and recognize them, but they are just a shadow.  We're not to hold onto them.  We need the real thing.  Just like my picture from Paris, you can tell what I looked like, but the only way you can really know me is relationship. 

The Old Testament saints had to be satisfied with types and shadows, but under the New Covenant, through Jesus, we can see the truth. Now we don't have to be satisfied with chasing shadows, but building relationship with the real God!