When I go to a wedding, my favorite moment is when the groom sees his bride before she walks up the aisle to him. Sometimes his eyes brim with tears, or he works to manage emotions bursting inside him, or he takes a deep breath that seems to convey his overwhelm by this gift that is slowly approaching him.
He is not thinking, Wow, that dress . . . Her makeup really brings out her best facial features . . . The hair stylist did an awesome job . . .
He is captivated by the person behind all that—her character, how she lives life, how she makes him feel, including about himself. To him, this person he has come to know is BEAUTIFUL.
Do you believe you are BEAUTIFUL?
I think many of us answer ‘no’ without pause. Our conclusion is based on our outer appearance—our hair, a facial feature, body parts, weight, height. Websites, magazines, stores, salons provide countless ways to accentuate, cover-up, or change our outer image. No wonder it’s so hard to think of beauty any other way.
The question you and I need to answer is: Whose definition of beautiful do we want to live by?
The world’s entices us to enhance or alter our outer image to become our best version of beautiful.
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature . . . For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1Samuel 16.7)
God’s word exhorts us to seek to know His love for us, to abide in this love, and in response, to participate with him as he shapes our heart, our character, our inner image.
Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. (1 Peter 3.3–4)
As citizens of God’s kingdom, who live in this world, we need to understand beauty God’s way.
Our view of our self affects our confidence, what we believe is possible for us, who we think wants to be our friend or more.
One definition of beauty is “lovely.” Beautiful is “loveliness.” Lovely means “lovable; eliciting love by moral or ideal worth.”
God’s love for you and me is thorough, powerful, and active within us. When we try to walk the day with him, we decide to believe his love for us. Within, his love soaks and shapes his character in us, while on the outside his love blossoms as we speak, smile, listen, serve, play.
Y’all, you are exquisite blooms of God’s love because God is Perfect Beauty…Beautiful. God sees you now as beautiful and so do others. Often we are the last to believe it or to rest in his view, his love.
Think about the people you are drawn to, who you want to spend time with and get to know. What is winsome or attractive to you? Is their outer image making an ever-increasing impression on you, or are the inner traits that you experience or witness affecting you, even shaping your image of them?
Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. (Proverbs 31.30)
How I see myself has been and occasionally still is a part of my journey. So I end with one of my prayers, that reminds me that one day we all will stand before The Groom whose eyes will be filled delight as he gazes on the beauty of his beloved.
Dear God,
Thank you for your design of me. Please help me see myself the way that you see me. Amen.
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