beauty

Beauty.

Beauty so often refers to appearance, especially to someone's appearance or of something in nature.  We hardly ever associate beauty with the unseen.  The bible talks about beauty in many ways.  It describes many of the women, including Sara (Genesis 12:11) and Queen Esther (Esther 1:11), and describes the Lord (Psalms 27:4).  Beauty can be enthralling (Psalms 45:11), tempting (Proverbs 6:25), fleeting (Proverbs 31:30), perfected (Ezekiel 16:14), degraded (Ezekiel 16:25), corrupting (Ezekiel 28:17), and majestic (Ezekiel 31:7).  Beauty causes very strong emotions.  It is one of the most powerful and shocking ways that we can get to know God and what He is like.  But God is physically unseen, so how do we know what God's beauty is like, especially if we only think about beauty as an outward characteristic?

1 Peter 3:4 urges women to not focus on fleeting outward beauty, but the "unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit."  How often do we think of beauty in this way?  Do we value this unseen beauty as much as God does, as being "of great worth in God's sight?"   Wouldn't it be amazing to see beauty the way that God does?  How would that change us?

For more thoughts, click here.



comfort

Comfort.

He is wooing you from the jaws of distress to a spacious place free from restriction.

Job 36: 16

My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life.

Psalm 119:50

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for.

Isaiah 40:1

chosen

Chosen.

In Him we are also chosen.

Ephesians 1:11a  

Pride is faith in the idea that God had when he made us.  A proud man is conscious of the idea, and aspires to realize it.  He does not strive towards a happiness, or comfort, which may be irrelevant to God's idea of him.  His success is the idea of God, successfully carried through, and he is in love with his destiny.

Isak Dinesen, from Out of Africa 

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you."

Hebrews 13:5

Let's be content with what God has given us, including having a Godly pride of ourselves, because we are a gift and we have been chosen.  As a gift, we were not presented with the option of what color our hair would be or what our personality would be like.  Let's have faith in what God's made us to be.

beginning

Beginning.

In the beginning, God created the heavens & the earth.

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:1

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men, yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Proverbs 9:10