Have you ever stood on the outskirts of a city looking into the beauty of the lights in front of you? Have you ever taken the time to notice how the lights fill up the city guiding its people in the darkness? Looking at the city from a distance, it looks like it's in order and it looks beautiful. The lights glisten on the horizon and they dance to the song of the night. It looks like things are okay and while not necessarily peaceful, they are calm.
But then you decide to get closer to the city hoping to get closer to take in more of the calmness, to see more of the peace, and be closer to the beauty of it all.
However, the closer you get the more you realize it's not as it seemed from a distance. As you get closer to the heart of the matter, you see it is a mess. There is little to no calmness but instead fearfulness. There is little to no peace, but calamity. And what you thought was beautiful turned out to be unpleasant sights and repulsive smells. Remember this description; it will become handy in a few paragraphs.
Today, I was folding race applications at my job when this thought occurred to me. The inside of the application was off-centered and askew. It wasn’t very appealing. Anyway, I had the task of folding them and let me just tell you, I am a perfectionist and very frugal, to a degree.
Well, like I said, the way the copier copied them, it made the information on the inside become off-centered. The margins were wrong and the font was crooked. I didn’t really pay attention until all copies were made and I had already started folding. They were tri-folds, so when I opened up the one application, I noticed that the one folded line goes through the middle of the application part. Now me being a perfectionist, I wanted to fix it, but the frugality in me didn’t want to just waste the paper.
So I did the next best thing. I made the outside look pretty (because we all know that it’s what catches the eye that sells). Then the idea that convicted me and gave me serious provoking thoughts was “it doesn’t matter how it looks on the inside, but it’s the outside that draws them in.”
Then I got to thinking, a very dangerous thing at times. Society used to teach us “it’s the beauty on the inside that counts.” And this is something we preach to people today, but somehow we fell away from that. Most of us fall victim to the aesthetic value of beauty. We all want to look and be like someone else. We constantly struggle with wanting to be thinner so we created Hydroxycut, Alli, and steroids. We have people wanting to be pretty so we use Cover Girl, Mary Kay, and Axe.
We do everything that we can to draw people to us, especially in “attracting the opposite sex.”. We dress up, put on make-up, and make sure we smell good to pull them towards us, but after they get close enough, they start to realize that we aren’t that beautiful on the inside. Have you ever noticed that the most beautiful people in the world are not celebrities with hair stylists and make-up artists? Most celebrities have colorful faces but their hearts are black! The most beautiful people I have seen have been those who give money to the beggars on the streets; people who serve the less fortunate at soup kitchens; people who give of themselves so others can have.
This goes back to the description of the city at night. The beauty of it from a far distance pulls us in as we are drawn into its beauty. However, as we get closer, we see that the heart of the city is black and full of sin. Proverbs 31:30 states that “Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting.” We are entranced and deceived by the beauty from a distance. How is the depiction of the city any different than our own lives?
God didn’t create us to put on a different face every day or to transform our bodies into something He didn’t create. Beauty is dangerous. There are plenty of accounts in the Bible in which when mentioned, beauty always led to sin and destruction. For example, beauty led King David to sleep with Bathsheba (sin #1: 2 Samuel 11:3-5) which then led to David lying to Uriah the Hittite (Bathsheba’s husband) and trying to get Uriah to sleep with his wife to cover up his first sin (sin #2: 2 Samuel 11:12-13). After his first failed attempt to cover up sin #1, he then sent Uriah to the front line of the army so Uriah would die in battle (sin #3/destruction #1: 2 Samuel 11:16-21).Lastly, Bathsheba bore King David’s son but because of David’s wickedness, the Lord took the son through illness (destruction #2).
Other stories of beauty, sin, and destruction can be found in the story of Sarai/Sarah, Rachel, Leah and Dinah in Genesis and Tamar in 2 Samuel 13. Their beauty led to sin and their tragedy. Sarai’s beauty almost got her in trouble with the Pharaoh. Rachel was beautiful and Leah had “soft eyes” in which Leah was thrown into an unwanted marriage that led to her being unloved by her husband. Bathsheba slept with David in a short lived affair. Dinah and Tamar were both raped. I challenge you to read their stories in its entirety.
What comfort to know that our “God does not judge by external appearance” (Galatians 2:6). He doesn’t care about your hair color. He doesn’t care what type of face product you use or the brand of your perfume/cologne. God doesn’t care if you are dressed the fanciest or have holes in your clothes. God doesn’t care if you have the perfect smile or the world’s most gorgeous eyes. He already knows you because He created you just the way you are. He planned every detail of your life including knowing the number of hairs on your head (Matthew 10:30). Even as I write this, the song “How He Love Us” by David Crowder Band (mind you it is my favorite!) comes on my ITunes. How form fitting for this message! The song sings “And I realize just how beautiful you are…How He loves us.” God loves you just the way you are.
Can I get personal with you for a second? The past couple of weeks I have been struggling with my self-worth, especially in how someone can love me the way God does. My prayer has been around the fact that how can I be worthy of some earthly man’s love when I am not even worthy of God’s love. I always tell myself that I can’t be in a relationship with another man if I can’t get my relationship right with my God. How can I romance a guy if I can’t romance my Creator? I haven’t felt beautiful in a long time. I don’t see myself the way I used to and it’s because I put up this barrier and I put distance between God and me. However, as I began writing this tonight, God started changing my thoughts as I was getting in the Bible and looking at how He views my beauty. Here are a few verses to meditate on:
Song of Solomon 4:1 – How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful!
Song of Solomon 4:7 – You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you
Proverbs 31:30 – Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Don’t ever feel like you are not beautiful. Don’t ever feel like you are unworthy of love. God tells me I am beautiful; that it’s better for me to fear Him than to want to be beautiful. Beauty is found within your heart. It’s found within your actions. It’s found in your relationship with Christ. I believe that a person becomes 10x more beautiful/handsome when I find that they are living for the Lord instead of living for the world, and that is the truth. I can look at someone and think they are “pretty/handsome,” but when I find that they walk with the Lord, it just makes them more attractive. I believe that in walking with the Lord, He makes you beautiful. He makes your skin glow. He makes you smile. He makes you feel loved.
Don’t participate in the things of this world just to feel pretty, but know that God made you and loves you for who you are. “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body” (Psalm 139:13-16). Don’t be somebody you’re not. Don’t follow the ways of this world or “need” to look like those in the media. So friends, even when you feel unloved, know that God loves you. Whenever you feel ugly, know that God thinks you’re beautiful. You are His daughter and son; His princess and prince; His bride; His beloved.
“The King is enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for He is your Lord.” ~ Psalm 45:11
Songs to listen to:
How He Loves Us – David Crowder Band
Something Beautiful – NeedtoBreathe
You Are More/Love is Here – Tenth Avenue North
Beautiful – MercyMe
More Beautiful You – Jonny Diaz
I Need You to Love Me – Barlow Girl
Beautiful, Beautiful – Francesca Battistelli
What Love Really Means – JJ Heller
For the Ladies – KJ-52 (rap song 
Cry on My Shoulder – Overflow
I’ve Always Loved You – Third Day
Until next time!
~ Not for my glory but for His. Not for the kingdom of this world, but for God’s Kingdom in Heaven. God be with you now and forever! ~
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