Heart Beauty
Café Menu for Friday, September 25, 2015
Today’s Special is: In His Eyes
Carefully prepared just for you by your friend, Paris Renae
Main Ingredient:
…the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.
1 Peter 3:4b NIV
Entrée:
Sometimes you can read His words and not see them. When He’s ready, you can’t miss them. After reading 1 Peter 3:4, I knew that gentle and quiet wouldn’t be the adjectives I would use to describe myself…
A world bent on beauty, the illusion of it, can leave us feeling unworthy.
Recently I watched a short film about a young man who dressed in a tux, nice hair, clean shaven - he went to ride the transit system where he lived. Each time he would tell the driver I forgot my wallet, can you let me go this time, and the driver would. Then he dressed in really scrounged clothes, messy hair, unshaven - did the same thing. This time, none of the drivers would let him on.
We have been conditioned to see the outward appearance. In our fast paced world no one looks long enough to see the real person, the real beauty. Praise God, He sees our hearts, He transforms us. He refines to remove our blemishes and He sent His Son to remove our stains.
We are often our own biggest critic. Never satisfied with our hair, our weight, or our clothes. Comparison becomes the trap and we scarcely notice others, while determining if we measure up. I don’t know about men, but rare is the woman who walks into a room and doesn’t size up everyone during the course of the time she’s there.
Yet God has His own beauty ideas and they aren’t about our appearance. It’s about our heart beauty.
Does our heart break about the things that break His? Does our heart long to soothe the hurting? Does our heart reach out in friendship and not judgment? A heart lit with His light, shines forth beauty that can’t be missed.
Ah, gentle and quiet, my heart – not the outward me – the me being molded by Him.
Beautiful is the one who brings Good News. Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder – the Beholder of your soul.
Take Out:
Let us determine:
Today not to look at our sisters and size them up, instead build them up.
Today to look in the mirror, smile gratitude, and see His beauty in us.
Today to share our hearts, be real, and bring Good News. To let our beauty Beholder, hold us – mold us, into those He can use to show His beauty.
Dessert:
Father, oh help us when we feel ‘less than’. Help us know we are ‘more than’ because You live in our hearts. Help us look beyond outward appearances, to look in the eyes of a hurting world. Show us, Lord, what true beauty looks like so that when the illusion tries to beat us down, we will recognize the lie. Refine us Lord and grow in us the gentle and quiet spirit You value and You can use. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
© 2015 by Paris Renae. All rights reserved.
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Originally published Friday, 25 September 2015.
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