Bible Reading: Deuteronomy 21:1-14
Focus, if you would, on verses 11-14. The principle is that once you take away her beauty, are you still desirous of her?
I’ve often said, “Outer beauty draws attention; inner beauty keeps it.”
Sam Jarrett wrote for Reader’s Digest:
My wife was grading a science test at home that she had given to her elementary-school class and was reading some of the results to me. The subject was “The Human Body,” and the first question was: “Name one of the major functions of the skin.”
One child wrote: “To keep people who look at you from throwing up.”
We do live in a world that I call the “beauty craze.” We spend more money on looking good than just about anything else. But what about that inner beauty of soul and spirit, do we spend time with God making them beautiful?
Charles William Eliot (1834-1926), former president of Harvard University, had a birthmark on his face that bothered him greatly. As a young man, he was told that surgeons could do nothing to remove it. Someone described that moment as "the dark hour of his soul."
Eliot's mother gave him this helpful advice: "My son, it is not possible for you to get rid of that hardship.... But it is possible for you, with God's help, to grow a mind and soul so big that people will forget to look at your face."
Now, maybe just maybe, this should be our goal rather than all of our time and resources being spent on outer beauty.
What to do:
✞ I’m not opposed to outer beauty. Praise God for it, but outer beauty without inner beauty loses its value. Keep yourself, not only outwardly beautiful, but inwardly beautiful as well.
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