"being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:6 NIV)
If you believe that you were created by God...that He made you...that you are "fearfully and wonderfully made"...than you can believe that you are beautiful! If you are a man and don't want to think of yourself as "beautiful," than think handsome, but even the "ugliest" people are beautiful to God. And, those who believe that also can believe that God BEGAN a good work in us the day we were born and then leaves it up to us to continue that good work.
Beauty...who is beautiful to you? Why are they beautiful?
I think, at least for women, we long to be beautiful. And, I think, down deep, we want inside beauty too...we want to be good. Yet, how many of us consider ourselves beautiful? Do you?
SO MUCH money is spent across the world every day on beauty products, exercise and diet plans, and even surgeries...all in the attempt to make ourselves more beautiful. WHY??? Because we have the inner desire to be beautiful. The problem is, we have chased after that desire for so long, it has overpowered many of our other desires and our culture (we) have depleted the desire by our selfishness. We have taken the natural desire God gave us to be good and beautiful, and polluted it.
But, we also given ourselves a complex and feel bad about our desire to be beautiful. We feel bad, and when we don't feel we live up to culture's vision of beauty, we give up..."I am not beautiful and I am never going to be beautiful" and we put ourselves down and grab another piece of cake!
Do you want to be beautiful? What lengths do you or would you go to to be beautiful? Do you see beauty in others? Can you see beauty beneath an "ugly" exterior?
Think about how you can "unveil" your own beauty...God made you, fearfully and wonderfully...think of ways you can be more beautiful...ways you can SHOW others the beauty God placed inside of you. Being kind to others...comforting and loving other people...letting the love of God shine through you. Be confident! God began a good work in you and wants to work WITH you to complete those good works through your life! Be beautiful!
I don't know if I consider myself to be "beautiful" per se...but I got swagger... :-)
ReplyDeleteFunny that this is your topic today. My wife works at Sephora and she is ALL about the cosmetics. Funny thing is...she's a beautiful woman WITHOUT makeup. For her, cosmetics is like collecting music or art. It's something she does for fun! But I get your point and I understand that we ALL have our own beauty that we need to embrace...
Alan, I think you are a "beautiful" person, in that you live life with love in everything you do. It is obvious how much you love your family...your wife, your kids, your parents and siblings. Just the loving compliments you made about your wife are beautiful! You work hard, yes, but the pride you show I what you do and the relationships you build all over the country in doing your job say a lot about your character as well.
ReplyDeleteReal beauty is not skin deep...but we like our skin to be as attractive as possible. Makeup and jewelry make us feel good about ourselves, and there is nothing wrong with that! I don't wear a whole lot of makeup, but don't like to leave the house without a little bit...and who doesn't like some "bling" to decorate ourselves? The search for beauty and the FEELING of beauty won't ever end because we were made to want to be beautiful...some people just need to realize how beautiful they really are!
Thanks for the post!