How to find yourself?

"As in water face reflects face, So a man's heart reveals the man." Proverbs 27:19

I always liked to read the bible and look out for personal messages for myself. It may be some applicable wisdom for a situation I am currently in, or even a blatant pointing out of something about myself. Indeed, when Paul said we behold Christ as in a mirror (2 Corinthians 3:18) we are being transformed into the same image of God, I believe Christ can also be found in the Hebrew Bible. After all, the whole book is about Him, written by Him, and for Him.

In today's verse, there is a particular concept that jumped out at me. On water, face reflects a face; this is compared to a man's heart revealing the man. At first glance, I thought that there seemed to be a slight misalignment in the parallel. We have the "face reflecting face" with the "man reflecting man", but where is the parallel for "water"?

I actually thought about it for a while and thought perhaps the "man's heart" is the water here. But I don't really understand the meaning of that. That the innermost part of a man will tell a man who he is? That the heart is the "water" that will reflect to the man, who he really is, seemed like a really straight forward axiom. Well, maybe that really is wisdom in itself. But for today, this bible verse spoke to me in a different way.

I realized that I was staring at "water" all this while: the water of the Word of God. And from my own experience and of many before me, there are countless of times where we were exactly like the woman at the well exclaiming: "Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did!". For our case, "Come see this Word that became flesh, and still tells me all about me!"

A man's heart does reveal a man, but what does he reflect his heart in? Beloved, I pray we all realize that all the questions of identity, of purpose, of self, have their answers found in the One who knew you in your mother's womb. And His Word is eternal, ever-relevant, life-changing, even in millennia to come.