Beauty Is an Inside Job

“Those who look to him are radiant.”                            Ps 34:5 NIV

It’s said “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but you can waste your life trying to please the wrong beholder. One Christian writer says: “When it comes to beauty each of us carries baggage from childhood…I’ve fretfully hung clothes of every size in my closet… messed with makeup when I should have slapped on sunscreen and gone outside to play. I’ve eaten close to nothing in an effort to stay small…wasted time worrying I wasn’t pretty enough when I should have been enjoying the things that made me interesting. Throughout history the definition of beauty has shifted to reflect society. Sometimes we should be curvy, other times rail-thin; sometimes tanned, sometimes pale; sometimes with long hair, sometimes with short…We devote our energies to meeting the latest standards and…guess what? There’s always another mandate…it’s an empty and relentless pursuit. We must seriously consider whose heart we’re trying to capture…God’s is the only one worth pursuing.” Paul says, “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking” (Ro 12:2 TM); “If anyone belongs to Christ…The old things have gone; everything is made new” (2Co 5:17 NCV). You won’t find the secret to inner beauty and peace by comparing yourself to the airbrushed models on magazine covers. That kind of image is unsustainable. You’ll find peace by asking God to remove the scales from your eyes and show you what you look like in His eyes. “Those who look to him are radiant.” The only healthy and lasting definition of beauty comes from God because He “looks into the heart” (1Sa 16:7 TM).

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