I feel sorry for women today. They want to feel beautiful, but the media keeps flaunting an almost impossible ideal of what an attractive woman looks like. Even famous supermodels admit that most of their pictures are not totally real. They are touched up to make them look better than they really are.
In 2004 a global study of 3,200 women, aged 18 to 64 was commissioned by Dove, a Unilever Beauty Brand.
Here are some results of that study:
Only 58% of the women surveyed were even “somewhat satisfied” with their beauty.
Almost three-quarters of women (72%) rate their beauty “average” and 69% rate their physical attractiveness “average.” Overall, 13% see themselves as somewhat less or much less beautiful or physically attractive than others.
The study reveals that women see beauty and physical attractiveness as increasingly socially mandated and rewarded, with almost two-thirds strongly agreeing that: “Women today are expected to be more physically attractive than their mother’s generation was” (63%); and, “Society expects women to enhance their physical attractiveness” (60%).
More than two-thirds (68%) of women strongly agree that “the media and advertising set an unrealistic standard of beauty that most women can’t ever achieve.” Women over 30 tend to believe this more strongly than women 18 to 29.
In spite of expensive make-up, exercise, and surgery, even very beautiful women gradually lose their good looks if they live long enough. Outward beauty just doesn’t last.
If a love relationship is based merely on physical attractiveness, it is bound to fail. That may be why so many marriage relationships don’t last today. Solomon summed it up this way, “Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain…” (Proverbs 31:30).
In spite of the fading value of our physical beauty, God still views beauty as being very important. I know this because of what the Bible says.
Although it is not often talked about, God is a beautiful God. “Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, You are very great; You are clothed with splendor and majesty” (Psalm 104:1). “Your eyes will see the King in His beauty….” (Isaiah 33:17). The beauty of a sunset or the loveliness of a flower are mere reflections of the beauty of the One who made them.
God is awesome in form as well as being very beautiful in appearance. “O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the earth.” (Psalm 96:9). “One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple” (Psalm 27:4).
When the Apostle John had a vision of God’s throne, he said that God, “… was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance” (Revelation 4:3).
Not only is God beautiful, but He also wants to share His unending beauty with us for all eternity. Jesus offers His followers “an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:4).
Compared to God we don’t have any beauty of our own, but we can actually have His beauty: “I will rejoice greatly in the Lord, my soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels” (Isaiah 61:10).
While we are waiting for God’s eternal beauty, He wants us to have a very special beauty here and now. He tells women “Your adornment must not be merely external—braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God” (1 Peter 3:3–4).
If you love God because He saved you from the penalty of your awful sin, then you will want the kind of beauty that He values. “For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. … the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before Him; strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength! Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name… Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness; tremble before Him, all the earth!” (Psalm 96:4–9).
If you have turned from following your own ideas and the ideas of this world in order to follow Jesus Christ instead, you have taken the first step toward feeling beautiful. All that remains is to focus on God, to see yourself as He sees you, and you will always feel beautiful because you will have His beauty.
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