The end of beauty as we know it? Well, not really, it's just the end of the beauty portion of our desire study. But before we move on, there are a few more things to consider when it comes to our hearts yearning for beauty.
The first is this - Psalm 116:16 – “O LORD, truly I am your servant; I am your servant…you have freed me from my chains”. God offers us freedom – and although that takes on many different forms, I think it most certainly includes freedom from the burden of self, and in particular the burden of self-created and self-sustained beauty! He offers us freedom from the mirror. Freedom from the all consuming mentality that everything begins and ends and revolves around me. Freedom from the endless pursuit to look and be and make myself "beautiful" in the world's eyes.
In place of all of that, we are freed to fully and completely experience, enjoy and make a big deal out of the most beautiful and most important reality in all of life – God himself. The person who is truly and eternally beautiful is the person who has been freed from a personal obsession with their own physical beauty and instead seeks to draw attention and glory to the eternal beauty of the Lord! God did not save us to make a big deal out of us or to free us to go out and make a big deal out of ourselves. He saved us so that we would be freed and allowed to make a big deal out of Him and His beauty. You need to live for and seek out a beauty that is so much greater and grandeur than you are. And in the process, you become that which you desire!
The second idea is this: Romans 1:25 – “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.” Are we not falling into this same trap? We may not be bowing down to golden calfs or wooden poles, but we are bowing down to and worshipping the human body. Just look at how we spend our time and money and where our eyes and mind tend to wander. What we need to think about is this: yes the body of a beautiful woman is a glorious thing, yes the body of a Spartan man is breathtaking and awe inspiring, but how much more glorious, how much grandeur, how much more beautiful must be the One be who made it all?
We incorrectly assume that the beauty we see and can behold, particularly in the human body, is the climax and pinnacle of all beauty. That the human body and the beauty we see in it is worthy of our pursuit, praise and devotion. But it is not. The body is a beautiful thing, but not nearly as beautiful as the One who orginally designed and spoke it into being. God made the body beautiful, not so we would become consummed by its beauty, but so that we would be drawn to and consummed by His beauty, the One who makes all things beautiful. I'm afraid that too many of us are worshipping created things instead of and in place of the creator. And in so doing we diminish the beauty that is in the temporal things, and miss out on the eternal beauty, the true beauty that lies behind and made them all.
(Lauren, thanks for everything)
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I just heard a great song called Add to the Beauty by Sara Groves and there was a line that really hit me that I thought I'd share. It definitely made me see beauty in a completely different light. It's funny that I heard this right as I'd been struggling with BOTH grace and beauty recently...and now I really see that the two are SO connected...
"And this is grace, an invitation to be beautiful."
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