An Authentic Beauty

As I wait at our local grocery store checkout stand, I sometimes scan the covers of the magazines displayed there. It seems that if they aren’t about the sexual escapades of the rich and famous, they’re about diet, fitness, health, and outward beauty.

The sad thing is, there’s nothing available in the above magazines for the soul.

The problem is that people read the wrong magazines — those that are full of lies that fixate on beauty of face and form as though that’s all there is. This can lead to comparison with others more beautiful than ourselves, many times causing great despair (2 Corinthians 10:12).

A few years ago, while working with a young fellow employee, I one day gave her a compliment by saying, “You are a very self-confident lady. “Can you tell me why?” She answered, “Yes, it’s because I’m so pretty and because of that, I can motivate most men do exactly what I want them to do.”

I responded by saying, “I feel sorry for you.” “Why?” she asked in surprise. “Because,” I replied, “You may not always be pretty.” “One of these days, your skin will be old and wrinkled, and those men you influenced to do what you wanted them to do, will no longer be influenced by your beauty.”

Solomon tells us that “Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting” (Proverbs 31:30 NIV). Physical beauty all too quickly fades away; and all one’s efforts to keep it are doomed to fail.

However, there is an inward beauty — an authentic beauty that will endure forever — in the one “who fears the Lord” (Proverbs 31:30; cf. 1 Peter 3:1-5).

—Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets