A Thought I Had (It happens on occasion)

Beauty is not frivolous

Reflections

Walking through the foothills outside of Reno, staring up at stars that are brighter than I have seen in months, talking to Jesus, reflecting on His kingdom, reflecting on life, listening to what He might say to me…

I cannot help but be humble at the infinite amount of wisdom and knowledge that I lack, and yet, I know this…

…there is more!

There is more to life than a 40 hour a week paycheck and a big screen television. Why do so many of us settle for living vicariously through the hopeless despair of Hollywood celebrities? Why do so many of us drown out our chance to change this world with mind-numbing self-desensitizing electro-media? Why do we narrow our own lives so dramatically? Are we simply unaware of how cramped a life is that is self-consumed? Do we fail to see the freedom found in a life consumed with Christ?

(And the next day I read this)

Dear, dear Corinthians, I can't tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn't fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren't small, but you're living them in a small way. I'm speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!
2 Corinthians 6:11-13

He is larger than the universe! He is so expansive, there is room enough in Christ for each of us to become ourselves, and yet reflect his nature. Becoming like Jesus is not a route to becoming Christian clones, but rather the only route to true self-actualization. In Christ we find our true selves, and he is so vast and so glorious that there is simply more than enough room for billions of individuals to be gloriously like Him, and still gloriously diverse!

He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.
Colossians 1:18-20

Everything good is found in Christ, anything outside of Christ is meaningless.

Where do you find Beauty?

So I was pondering beauty the other day....

Is it just a 20 year old in a string bikini on a beach with a great tan and a hard body? If so then what is to become of her at 40 after 3 kids and a fortune in botox treatments, hair dye and cellulite creams? Is she no longer the picture of beauty that comes to our minds? Well most of us would say 'no that's not true beauty, what matters most is what is on the inside, what type of person you are? But that is not what we are saying as a society, look around "Beautiful" now means "Barbie" and women all over america are doing whatever it takes to be "beautiful."

So this is the legacy we give to our daughters.... be thin, be pretty, and do whatever it takes to be these because then all will see your beauty. What a hoax!!!!!!!!!!!

This is not the type of beauty that the creator of the universe placed in all of us, we are all beautiful!!!!!!!!!! because we are God's.

Beautiful According to Me...

A life restored.... there is nothing more beautiful that watching as God restores a person to that which they were created to be. A man at the end of his rope, wishing for the end, finding joy and laughter, but most of all hope.
A womans who has tried it all in the name of love, and for all that she has found bitterness and pain, this same woman finding love in a God who doesn't discriminate by what you look like or what you have done.

A group of people who take seriously the call to "love your God with all your heart and love your neighbor", because they were that man or that woman in need of restoration.

This is the legacy I long to leave my daughter, beauty is seen as we embrace the heart of the father.