July 3rd
Proverbs 31:30
Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.
We live in a topsy-turvy world. The things we value don't last, while the things that we devalue have eternal value. We place a high regard on beauty and charm. We place a significantly lower value on godliness. Men are encouraged to be "buff" and women are to aspire to be "beautiful". Yet all of these emphasize the outward and the external and leave the inward untouched. Our soul is sacrificed on the altar of appearance. This is obviously absurd. We are praising the wrong things.
Our text makes us pause to reconsider this presumption . For most of us, we are charming but we lack the dignity and grace that “charm” suggests. And very few of us will define ourselves as beautiful by a worldly perspective. We struggle to maintain the standard that is presented to us from birth to be buff or be beautiful. We diet. We work out. We do without and still we feel that we never will measure up to their standard.
Solomon gives us a different perspective. He proposes that it is not the outward that is to be pursued and praised, but the inward. He suggests that the charm that we elusively seek after is deceptive. We strive to get there only to find it disappoints us. The bar keeps shifting so that we can never arrive.
It is the same with beauty. What was considered beautiful in the past is no longer seen as beautiful. The societal standard keeps shifting so it is impossible to detect if you have attained what you were seeking. It is never enough and you find that no matter how much you try you will never reach “the look” you seek. And even if you were to come close, the beauty that you have attained slowly fades away with age, as Solomon says “it is passing”. You get there and it goes away.
So the solution is to seek after that which doesn’t shift or fade. Seek to fear the Lord and you will see yourself as more beautiful then you ever imagined. You will see yourself as God sees you.
This kind of beauty comes for fearing God. It wells up within you, not through diets and workouts, but when you surrender and submit to the Lord. It is looking at Him rather than looking at yourself. It is trusting in Him rather then trying to be "buff or beautiful". In Him you find the beauty that you seek and you become the "beauty" that you long to be. There is an internal beauty that emanates from a woman who fears the Lord. She is the one to be praised.
So stop striving so hard to be beautiful and seek the Beautiful One. Don't let the standard of the world draw you into its unfulfilling and unsatisfying net. Find in fearing the Lord an unquenchable beauty you could never have found in the fitness center or through a fade diet. Let them praise you for your relationship with God rather than your physique.
Today thank God that He loves you like you are. Thank Him that He is beautiful and makes you beautiful. Bless Him that in fearing Him you have a "beauty" about you that far exceeds any that you would attain otherwise. Ask Him to help you live out your inner beauty of godliness that others might see it in you and desire what you have.
Comments