Take the challenge: Define the Essence of ‘Beautiful’
What is the essence of beauty?
God designed us to need beauty.
God created beauty so we could enjoy His nature of love and delight. As movies, commercials, magazine ads and billboards can tell us, however, our broken culture warps God’s design by turning beauty into a commodity that people demand in order to satiate the craving for admiration, love, or satisfaction. When we expect beauty to fill the hunger in our souls, we’re never satisfied.
True beauty looks to the source of all beauty, the Beautiful One Himself, Jesus Christ. We don’t always see His beauty with physical eyes, but spiritual—an ‘inner beauty’—the core of what beautiful is all about.
To help train myself to recognize and appreciate God-inspired inner beauty, I took the challenge to define the essence of ‘beautiful.”
Dictionary.com defines beautiful as: having beauty; possessing qualities that give great pleasure or satisfaction to see, hear, think about, etc.
So our question is:
How would you define ‘beautiful’? —or what things “possess qualities that give great pleasure or satisfaction” to our spiritual eyes, ears and minds?
A few definitions come to mind…
The photo of a Christ-follower in India (friend of a friend) with hard-won wisdom glowing in her eyes—
inspiring beauty.
A dog-eared book that gave the reader meaningful perspective––
life-changing beauty.
When my husband and I both swallow our pride and support the other’s cause rather than defend our own—
soul-binding beauty.
A placid sunset shared by two friends from the back porch over a cup of tea—
astonishing beauty.
A boy with down-syndrome dancing to worship music with abandoned delight—heart-throbbing beauty!
Your turn! Take the challenge!
How do you define the essence of inner beauty? Be as poetic or down-to-earth as you want. Please share your idea(s) by leaving a reply below. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!