The Truth About Beauty

The Truth About Beauty

In the summer of 1997, I went out to Salt Lake City, Utah, for what was the hardest summer of my life. I went out to colporteur. For eight hours a day, I was going from home to home knocking on doors, trying to get Mormons to buy Christian books. Selling chocolate would have been so much easier. Anyways, on the first day that I got there I met up with my friend Jon Larssen. Now Jon, although he had grown up as an Adventist in Angwin, near PUC, had recently had a powerful conversion experience. I had encouraged Jon to come out and colporteur with us. Jon arrived a few hours later after I arrived. After meeting the other colporteurs, there were about ten of us, we went out to Taco Bell for dinner. Now Jon, was tall, good looking, and was what we used to call a mac daddy! He was just really smooth went it came to talking to girls. So this is a mac daddy who had just recently had a conversion. Anyways, while we were eating, he said, “What’s up with the Volvos?” I said, “What? What are you talking about?” He said, “The girls, they look so boxy and square.” Most of the girls were very conservative, they all wore dresses, they wore very little makeup and they all looked very plain. So that’s why he referred to them as Volvos. So all summer long we joked about the Volvos, and about how we liked the more sporty type with the curves and the flashy colors, although I didn’t completely agree with him. Well, as time went by, Jon got to know the girls in our group very well as he held conversations with them. He had heard them give worship talks, and heard them share their struggles in colporteuring and how they overcame their difficulties. It was around the tenth week of suffering, that Jon says to me, “Do you want to know something, I think I could marry any one of those girls.” He said, “these girls are different. They are beautiful.” Do you know what happened to Jon? His eyes were opened and he beheld spiritual beauty.

This morning I will be going back and forth between the NKJV and the NIV. With certain verses, I like the way the NIV reads.

Proverbs 31:30 (NIV) Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

Beauty is fleeting! Young men, don’t go after a women just because of her physical beauty. Beauty is fleeting! Do you know what “fleeting is? The Collins Cobuild English Dictionary says, “Fleeting is used to describe something which lasts only for a very short time.”

Many years ago before I got married, I was reading one of John Grey’s books. He is the well known author of Men are from Mars and Woman are from Venus. I was trying to figure women out. They are hard to figure out, aren’t they? In one of his books, I read something very interesting. He wrote about how in his counseling, he discovered that there were men who were married to women that looked like models, but these men lost complete interest in their wives. They were not attracted to them. John Grey thought this was strange. So John Grey did some research. He discovered that in order for a man to be attracted to his wife for the long haul, the man has to connect with his wife on four levels. There’s the emotional level, the intellectual, the physical, and what do you think the fourth level is? The spiritual level!

Could it be that our Creator designed us in such a way that in order for us to experience true intimacy there has got to be more than just physical attraction?

Young ladies, and young men, don’t ignore the importance of spirituality. “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” Amen!

Let me help you understand why spiritual beauty is so important. Everything in this world gets old. Can you remember the birthday present you got when you were 6 years old? How long did it take before it got old? What about all the Christmas presents you got last week? Did it get old after a few days? I don’t care if it is a new suit, I don’t care if it’s a new car, I don’t care if it is a house, it gets old. Everything gets old. Amen! By the way, even your boyfriend gets old, your girlfriend gets old, and even your spouse gets old.

There is one thing that doesn’t grow old. Do you know what that is? It’s the beauty of Christ’s character. The person that is being daily molded into the image of Jesus has something fresh, something new about them. There is something sweet about them.