Purposeful Beauty

Beauty with a Purpose

So, I was walking down the street today, (like many days lately, since I am currently without a vehicle) and the beauty of the white blossoms in the otherwise sterile metropolitan environment.  Then, a blurb from an old Creed song popped into my head.  Go ahead and take a moment to make fun of the fact that I once adored Creed… OK, moving on…  So the song was called, ‘Beautiful’ I think, and it talked about how outward beauty is shallow and eventually fades, etc. Some of the lyrics talked about how, “Beautiful is empty…” and “Beautiful loves no one”. This sounds like decent philosophy for an almost Christian band to be putting on their records, right?  I thought so too, until I thought more about it today.  It’s too much of a sound byte to really stand on its own.  Sure, outward beauty CAN be shallow, but it’s not beauty itself that is empty, it’s the wrong use of it that may be a perversion of God’s will for it.

Lord, I pray that your words flow from my fingers onto this digital surface and that only Your wisdom comes through to any who may read this.  I thank you for your inspiration and for the crafting of ALL of my life’s experiences to glorify you and to exhort your church, my brothers, my sisters, and myself: all this in Jesus’ name, amen.

—————————-

So, the Lord made some connections for me about beauty while walking today.  I also felt led to read Esther this evening in my devotional time, and I didn’t realize that correlation was about to be made stronger. In a basic synopsis, we who’ve read the Bible a little or gone to some Sunday school classes probably have a passing familiarity with the story of Esther, right?  We know that it’s essentially about a young Jewess who becomes winner of a beauty pageant, thus the seat of queen, where she is able to use her authority to benefit God’s people (at that time, the Jews). So the ‘Miss Susa 480 B.C.’ competition ends with the Jews getting saved from destruction, this much we know, but what other gems of wisdom, in all of their glory and beauty, do we have shining at us in this passage ?

Upon further reflection, after having just read the passage, being inspired by the Holy Spirit, perhaps led to this because Easter (its name a derivative of the name of the pagan feast of Esther) upon us, some more facts stood out to me.  The Lord knew she was born for such a time as that. He knew that the previous queen would disobey and dishonor her husband by refusing to appear when she was commanded to, and that the Susan kingdom would be in need of a replacement queen to take her office.  God knew how long it would take for the process of replacing the queen to commence, and at what age Esther would have to reach in order to have attained the fullness of her womanhood.  That He created her with such an astounding beauty that she would make it into the qualifying rounds of the pageant, so to speak, with her natural good looks and the provided cosmetics, is astounding.  While her good looks may have gotten her a foot in the door, however, it is worth noting that what allowed her to win the heart of the king and the peolple was not JUST her good looks.  We can’t downplay them and say that they had no bearing, but without good character, Esther too would have been thrown out on her hypothetically ex-royal behind if she had disrespected her husband’s commands in public as her prior had done.

God used Esther’s beauty to win her an office, to earn her a voice that she could use to free the Jewish people from an encroaching oppression. The king offered up to half his kingdom to his queen and she seized this opportunity to serve the people in her nation, specifically those of her own kin and of the house of God. We see this in stark contrast to the woman who danced for king Herod in the New Testament.  She used her beauty as a source of manipulation in order to seduce the hearts of the men in power, specifically the king, and to use her God-given beauty as an instrument of destruction in the life of John the Baptist and his followers.  Of course, God knew this would all happen and it is in no way out of the bounds of his control, however, I believe these stories are too similar to not be compared and contrasted with one another for the sake of instruction, as per second Tim 3:16.  Beauty, in Esther’s case, was used to thwart the potentially life-threatening persecution of God’s people.  In the case of a young woman, whom creative minds have called ‘Salome’, however, we see a devilish plot to pervert the purposes of beauty and attraction into tools of destruction and manipulation. With all we’ve been given, we can sell Jesus or we can advertise for the enemy – what are we choosing?

Beauty’s purpose is to attract.  Look at flowers.  Look at seashells.  Look at human beings.  Each one could do its job without being ‘beautiful’, I suppose, but there would simply be an element missing.  I’ve noticed over the years that what makes something beautiful is its design. Generally speaking, symmetry and order are what strike us humans as being beautiful. Sometimes that order comes in the form of the disorderly, as backwards as that might sound, but I believe that’s why not-traditionally-beautiful-yet-still-beautiful-all-the-same items appeal to us. So, in the case of the beauty we see in the world, we can get so caught up in it that we forget what its purpose is.  Momentarily, I think that’s fine; life is meant to be lived with emotions too!  Jesus wept and got angry, right?  If we go around thinking about the ‘why’s’ of everything all the time, life can be sucked of its joy and emotional enjoyment.  On the other side of the continuum, though, I think we must not forget them, either. The middle road / golden mean / golden ratio / strait gate here is that beauty too finds its purposes in God’s will. Ultimately, I believe that the reason for natural beauty on this earth is to attract us to Him – Our God, Our Creator, Our Father, Our Messiah, Our King, Our Holy Spirit, Our Comforter, Our Everything.

All creation is crying out, awaiting the manifestation of the sons and daughters of God, right?  How do you think they’re doing that? I would say that at least some part of that is by reflecting God’s glory. Part of God’s glory is in His beauty.  As it says in the last psalm, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!”  Even the rocks are crying out to worship God with their portion of God’s glory. Jesus said that they would even cry out with voices if we won’t!  Like a freshly polished mirror, we too are to shine the glorious light of Christ that is reflected on us.  Just as nature attracts onlooker to pause and reflect on the beauty of Yahweh’s creation, Christ will attract all men unto himself as He is lifted up.  All who are called to predestined to conform to the image and likeness of Christ, who is to be, then, the firstborn amongst many good-looking, dare I say beautiful, brothers and sisters, will come because His beauty attracted them.  Christ’s beauty, unlike Esther’s, though, is not outward.  We are told that Christ was not special in outward appearance, that none would be attracted to Him in such a way.  So we’re not all called to outward beauty as Esther was, however, we are ALL called to the inward beauty that was found in Christ if we are to be worthy of the name ‘Christian’.

Like Esther, we too were born for such a time as this, with particular gifts and talents given by Our Lord, and may we use them as she did her outward beauty, to glorify God.  May the beauty of our godly sisters not be found in outward apparel and jewelry, but in the quietness of a spirit submitted to God’s spirit within them.  May the character of our Christlike brothers be found as beautiful as Esther’s outward appearance after a year’s worth of spa days in the king’s court.  May the beauty with which we’ve been endowed by God, primarily inward, but also outward as well, be used to draw all men to Christ.  Lord, may the fruit of your Holy Spirit, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Meekness, Gentleness, Faithfulness, and Self-control, not be found lacking in Your children, and may we walk in line with Your perfectly designed, ordained, and ordered will for our lives: the beauty for which you’ve prepared us and are preparing us since before the dawn of time. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Glad to Be of Service in and of the King to His Beloved,

-Seanway