Trying to seek yesterday’s peace in today’s reality can be one of the most self-defeating things we do to ourselves. Many of us have gone thru major hardships in life. Before the hardship in your life, your comfortability and peace of mind came from a certain level of familiarity, accessibility and manageability of specific things or specific individuals in your day to day. But after your hardship, those comfortabilities where compromised–if not all together eliminated.
Now the new normal of your today seems outside of your control and reach. You want to feel the same joy you felt yesterday. You want to have the same access and comfort today as you had yesterday. But the fact that you’re trying to hold on to yesterday’s peace is the very reason you can’t take possession of today’s peace. That relationship is over! You can get that job back! You can’t reverse time to avoid those experiences! It is what it is!
Today comes with new mercies and new blessings. God will give you new peace for your new normal. But the only way for us to obtain this new peace is to stop chasing old peace that no longer exist.
The ability to move on in life depends first on us realizing that there is a time and a season for everything. And the second thing is understanding that God controls every season.If you’re struggling with embracing the new peace in your new normal/season ask God to help you let go of the old season so that you can take hold of the present. He wants to give you new peace for your new normal. But you have to let Him.
I don’t have an issue with anyone’s desire to use cosmetics or any other beautification techniques. But the truth is, society has had a major influence on how women view themselves.
What’s attractive? What’s acceptable? What makes me a real woman? What do men find most appealing?
We are bombarded with advertisement for women all the time. Body shapers that make your waistline appear smaller and your hips rounder. Lipsticks that make your lips like fuller. Products that make your hair and skin look healthier (even if it doesn’t make it healthier). Manicures and pedicures. Eyebrow arches. Eyelash extensions. The list goes on and on.
There’s nothing wrong with doing something that helps you feel better about how you look and feel about yourself. We should take care of ourselves and want to carry ourselves in a way we can be proud of.
But for many, their external beauty gets invested in way more than their inner beauty. And when this happens, a woman will determine her worth by how she looks instead of who she is. Moreso, who God says she is.
God forbid she’s not able to get her hair done, her nails done or her feet done. It will affect how she feels about herself. It’s not because anything is wrong with her if she doesn’t do all these things, but because society says in order for you to be accepted by others, you should do all these things.
It even affects how others see her. “What’s wrong with her? She needs to fix herself up. Why did she come out of the house looking like that?” When she doesn’t do all those things, somehow she becomes offensive to society — as if she’s supposed to make it a priority to make sure she’s appealing to everyone she comes in contact with.
But we have to ask ourselves, does the fact that my hair and nails being done affect how God sees me? Is He checking for my hair or is He checking for my heart?
I recently read “Whatever you can’t go without, you become a slave to.” Can you be seen without xyz? Why not?
The reality is, others can be blown away and enamored by your beauty on the outside, when God is displeased and disappointed with the condition of your heart towards Him.
Look what God says concerning King Saul.
1 Samuel 9:2 (AMP) Kish had a son named Saul, a choice and handsome man; among the sons of Israel there was not a man more handsome than he. From his shoulders and up he was [a head] taller than any of the people.
Can you envision Saul? He would probably be considered a major looker today. We would call him “Fine!”. He was tall and handsome. Put him in a nice suit and shoes and give him a nicely groomed beard and a nice smile, and we’d probably see him on the cover of a magazine as the “Sexiest man alive”. And ladies all around the world would become his fans and fantasize about him simply because of the way he looks.
Although, Saul was very tall and attractive, his looks and stature wasn’t enough to please God.
1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
The people received Saul as the anointed King of Israel. In spite of Saul’s status, his position, his good looks or how others looked at him, God had rejected him because of his disobedience.
As women, our beauty shouldn’t become a bad thing. It can actually work to honor God, not honor us. The world wants us to consume ourselves with looking a certain way and seeking vanity to gain personal favor and to appeal to the world. The world wants to use and consume the beauty of women. It’s sexualized and monetized. But if/when God blesses us with physical beauty, it’s about His glory — not our own.
Consider the Old Testament book of Esther. Esther was favored and became queen because of her physical beauty. But it was her character that enabled her to be used by God to save the Jews from being destroyed.
Esther 2:17 says that the king loved Esther more than any of the other women and she had more favor and kindness from the king than all the others. She was beautiful, but she wasn’t self-absorbed. Esther had an obedient heart and cared about her people. Her beauty was a gift from God to serve the His people. She had beauty, but she also had an inviting demeanor that discerned how she was to approach the King with her request.
Then the king said to her, “What is troubling you, Queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given to you, up to half of the kingdom.” – Esther 5:3
In this moment of favor, Esther didn’t make it about herself. She could have requested things that would satisfy her and make her more comfortable. She could have been selfish. But she used this opportunity to work a plan to save the Jews. Even in this moment, she was thinking about others.
Esther and her God-given beauty was purposed and prepared for such a time as this.
For if you keep silent at this time, liberation and rescue will arise for the Jews from another place, and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?” – Esther 4:14
Just like Saul, God can reject us in spite of our outer appearance and other’s acceptance of us. And just like Esther, we can use our beauty for great things for such a time as this. Don’t let the enemy contaminate your gift of beauty from God. Allow Him to use it for His glory.
It’s one thing when that man calls you beautiful or they call you beautiful. But it’s something totally different when God calls you beautiful.
Charm and grace are deceptive, and [superficial] beauty is vain, But a woman who fears the Lord [reverently worshiping, obeying, serving, and trusting Him with awe-filled respect], she shall be praised. Proverbs 31:30
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