Back to the Gold Standard

“I feel pretty, Oh, so pretty, I feel pretty and witty and fine...” I just finished watching West Side Story with my mom and dad, and I can't get this song out of my head. Oh, well. It's message is rather pertinent to the moment.

Tonight, Pastor Nate gave a sermon about planting our roots in God – about spending every possible moment in prayer and worship so that we may see the fruit in our lives sometime down the road.

I know that God has been wanting to give me more joy. Ever since LA, I've been trying to make space for Him to do His work in my life. Tonight He showed me some of the fruit of that work.



In the song cited above, Maria says that she feels beautiful because, “... my boy loves me...” I feel that this is true of most of our modern culture. We need the world to tell us that we're beautiful before we can actually believe it. But true self-confidence, true self-worth that lasts through a storm, can only be found in God.

I show up in the world every day. I take care of myself, I dress well, and every once in a while I'll get a compliment along the lines of “you're so beautiful,” “you look radiant today,” or “your face looks like it's glowing.” And then I come to the realization that, “these people know when I've put extra effort into plastering my face with a bunch of makeup... and THEY LIKE IT.”

While those compliments are nice, while they make me feel warm and fuzzy inside for just a moment, they can never last. Because these people aren't praising ME. They're praising the false image that I've put on for the sole purpose of gaining their praise.

True beauty comes from the heart. It is a beauty that can't be put on or taken off like a piece of clothing. THAT kind of beauty only comes when you've taken time to be with God. To plant your roots so deep that they cannot be shaken.

I think it's time that we all go back to the gold standard when it comes to beauty, and the praise of other people's beauty. Please, before we all go bankrupt. We need to find that gold standard again.