We really are all different shades of beautiful. But it’s says it pretty plain in Scripture…

Do not let your adorning be external– the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear–

It’s not that externals are for naught. That’s not the point. Elsewhere in Scripture it says of the excellent wife she is clothed with fine linen and purple. It’s not that beauty is bad, it’s that external beauty doesn’t last. It’s vain. It’s fleeting. It’s running away with time on you, and if that’s all you’ve got going, you ain’t going very far.

We live in a world obsessed with it. Even Jesus seekers fall into it. Our minds fixate on tending to our hair, our jewelry, our clothes and the danger is that we neglect our souls. We’re trading pretty souls for designer clothes, and it is not a good trade. We’re swapping renewed minds for firmer faces. We’re choosing the gym over the Gem of all time. Our jewels distracting us from the Jewel of Heaven.

We’re distracted and insecure and scared. Wondering if anyone else feels this pull. We really want to go the way of Christ, but there are loud voices pulling us away from sound doctrine, and we’re not quite secure enough to let the lie go because it doesn’t appear that anyone else is…. But we’re wrong. There’s enough security in Jesus…in the God the holy women of the past used to put their hope in…to live on Truth. The lie we believe really is lying to us…and there’s measureless beauty in Jesus…measureless. There’s enough of it to eat. That’s beauty that can feed you, Nupita Nyong’o (smile), the beauty shining forth from Zion.

So, we can believe God on this one…

but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which in God’s sight is very precious.

Do we want the beauty that flees away, the beauty that rushes like water through closed fingers? Or do we want beauty that lasts…measureless beauty? Do we want what is very precious in God’s sight, or are we already settling for the very thing He is telling us not to hope in…? The beauty we think we see or want to see when we peer into a piece of glass. There’s a better mirror…the Word…and the longer you look at it, memorize it, read it, meditate on it, love it…the more you will see the Son in it. And the more you will become like that image and the more you will feed on beauty that lasts….

Beauty that escapes skin tone. Beauty that is beyond your perfect size. Beauty that will last beyond the mist of life. That’s the beauty you really want and you can’t buy it and it will never be taken away.