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Beauty

                  Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. (I Peter 3:3-4)

                Technically, these verses concern wives, but young, unmarried women may grow up to be wives, and older widows provide examples for younger women to model. In addition, there are men who are into outward adornment, elaborate hairstyles, and fine clothes. Somehow, I doubt Paul would tell younger, older, or male clotheshorses to ramp it up while wives to rein it in.

                I also doubt that the teaching that applies to clothing would not also apply to any area that produces identity. Do you need an impressive house, car, pet, job, set of certificates to hang on your wall, perfectly manicured lawn, or (um) garden to be beautiful, successful, important, or valuable? I have to wonder how often we turn to these other things because we are sure we’re lacking something internal that would make us so. We are, or we fear we are, empty, so we paint ourselves with bright colors in one form or another. The “package” is empty.

                Paul suggests, instead, that we find our identity in gentle, quiet spirits. Elsewhere in Scripture, Jesus talked about loving one another and your enemies. Others wrote about doing good. Paul wrote of being characterized by the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), the Armor of God, (Ephesians 6:10-20), love (I Corinthians 13) and many other combinations of internal characteristics that can become part of you in a way jewelry, skin color, gender, or any of the other popular sources of identity can’t.

                If we are to find our identity or our beauty, would it not be better to find it in something over which we have some measure of control as opposed to something passive, that requires little or no effort on our part? And shouldn’t we aim for something that is bigger than us rather than narrowing our  universe down to what we see in the mirror?  

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