True Beauty

True Beauty

"But the Lord said to Samuel, 'Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.'"1

On a lighter note, I believe it was Charles Colson who expressed a simple but profound tongue-in-cheek truth when he shared, "Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's too much fraternizing with the enemy."

In Western culture (at least) tremendous emphasis is placed on physical beauty. There's nothing wrong with being beautiful and keeping ourselves attractive, but if that's what controls our life and is a cover-up for insecurity, we will be left very empty inside—and even more so as the years take their toll on our body.

Sophia Loren says that "beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical." Sure that was easy for Sophia to say with her incredible physical beauty, but what she said was true. Better said, it would be, "True beauty is what you are inside." If we are only loved for our physical beauty, we will never feel truly loved because that is not the real person.

As Saint Exupery said, "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

Ralph Waldo Emerson put it this way, "Though we search the world over for the beautiful, we find it within or we find it not."

Furthermore we can only ever be loved to the degree that we are known—and that has nothing to do with our external appearance, but all to do with our inner being.

According to God's Word, "Charm can be deceptive and beauty doesn't last, but a woman [or man] who fears and reverences God shall be greatly praised."2

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please help me to be a beautiful person on the inside and so live that the beauty and love of Jesus will show and shine through me. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus' name, amen."

1. 1 Samuel 16:7 (NIV).
2. Proverbs 31:30 (TLB)(NLT).

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