Day 3658 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Peter 3:3 NIV

I’m increasingly convinced that among all the lies told for and from mankind, perhaps the most damaging will be that heard within how beauty is defined only behind the eyes of the beholder of such.

For since when did beauty become so shallow as to be something supposedly only seen in its entirety? Does something such as the overall allure of the human soul truly know such a bounds as to be beheld by the eye alone? Or might we have merely settled for such a foolish assumption due to such sinfulness as lust and thus our looking always to our eyes to tell our minds that what we see is what’s best to crave? Indeed, we are anymore just so depraved as what’s now defined as such a superficial people that we seem almost entirely unable to understand the fullness of our existence.

Rather we all just swim atop the surface in what seems a shared fear of our finding out just how much more we’ve always been.

Because were we to ever see that life isn’t meant to be so limited as to be lived by sight alone, I dare say too that we just might have to then sit within the realization that we’ve given years, decades, entire lifetimes perhaps to what is only an incredibly minute portion of our potential and purpose and presence as a whole. Alas, it’s as if we consider our presence to be nothing more than something meant only to look at. And we, in that, dress ourselves in whatever ways that might portray the things that the world so clearly looks for.

But since when was that ever anything anywhere near what God called us to do or thus be?

No, instead He said plainly that neither does He look at the things man looks for, and thus nor should we so settle to with society agree upon what most consider the construction of our every visual presumption as to what such things as beauty and benevolence and even belief should be. For this world is continuing to prove, and that in some increasingly alarming ways, that it has no base for any determination in regard to anything at all.

Because if everything is meant to become but a matter meant to be measured by only the lonely beholder, then everything will eventually simply mean nothing because without some sort of unaltered and unalterable standard by which to gauge what we grow and where we go from there, we’ll all merely devolve into self-absorbed monsters insistent upon the entire world around us either pleasing the eyes through which we live our lives or simply leaving us alone altogether as we alone set out looking to see something better.

Indeed, when life is allowed to become a matter made of adornment or adoration built only upon the same, then all that’s left to come is each and every one deciding for themselves what they look for and the rest they’ll forever refuse to look at.

And we see this already evidenced within this whole cosmetic industry in which men and women alike, women most certainly more than men, but both together are ushered forever into this ongoing incoming of what feels an almost income as waiting to be won within our doing whatever it takes to become a pretty face that will please those who can look at us and see only the flesh. And what a tremendously sad society that is setting us up to become!

Because along that line wherein all we do is done to define our frame in whatever way that most say it should look like, all that we can become is merely reflection of what the rest already are.

Thus a superficial society is all that we can remain so long as the surface is all that we see fit to see.

Which is, again, something that Scripture calls us explicitly against. Because God knows that there’s so much more to us than what little meets the eye, and so He knew that if we didn’t hear that He doesn’t look at what we do, nor the continued reminders of where our beauty and worth and meaning truly reside as resounding within verses like this one, He knew that we’d go the way of all mankind and become so blind to who we are and what that means that we’d eventually mean nothing at all.

Yes, He knew that a life of objectivity would lead only to us objectifying one another as if all we are meant to be are images on a screen that do not talk, do not think, do not even pretend to have a say in or opinion of anything. He knew that we’d be what we’ve indeed so sadly become. We are anymore nothing but a people hiding behind the common appeal of vanity, embracing every form of insanity that such is able to offer us.

And it has a lot to offer indeed!

In fact, I dare say that vanity is in and of itself a quite bottomless belief in that there always seems to be some new idea or ideal that we can aim for and thus turn our lives toward. There’s always some new style, some new fashion, some novel brand that’s sweeping the nation leaving anyone who doesn’t get in quick to suffer the lack of respect that we give only to those who decide only to live to please the people around them who think them nothing but something to see.

And personally, again as I’ve been confessing lately, I have been there and I feel as though He’s finally breaking me free.

Now that’s not to say that it’s an easy change to understand let alone undertake. It isn’t. Because it’s something that is in many ways entirely different than what the rest of the world around us is content to continue considering. But that’s just it, at least for me. It’s that I’ve considered what the world considers and found it almost utterly lacking any real value or meaning or merit. Let alone any worth any actually continued work as done within the years I too spent trying to please people by looking just right.

I’m just tired of living my life in a reflection. Because that just seems quite flat, almost like pictures taken trying to show the world who we are.

How can that even be possible? To capture even a portion of our person within a portrait or a preference or a possession? Are we not more than we hold or hear? Does not my life consist of more than my eyes can see? As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve never seen my thoughts but I know I have them. Haven’t seen my heart but I can feel it beating. But I can’t say the same about anything of the outward that can be held in the hand. Because none of the external is able to give us life.

Because nothing outside of us is supposed to be a part of us.

And yet anymore it’s only the outside of us that we allow to all but define us. We are a very outwardly expressionary creation. It’s something done so commonly because of our tendency toward living life eye-first. It’s a matter made mainstream because of our walking by sight. Which is one of my personal favorite verses to think about. Because it reminds us that what we see is but a moment in time. And even if something is there for a great many of those moments, it’s still entirely limited by time itself.

Because everything here is passing away. And that’s what worries me about continuing to live that way in which my appearance, or anyone else’s outward limits is allowed to matter so very much that nothing else really can. Because so long as we exist upon the surface of the seen, we are literally tying our lives to the explicitly temporary. And thus our lives themselves are lived temporarily.

For we are what we focus on as we become part of said prize. And thus, friends, it’s our eyes that are often allowed to not merely lead our lives but love the lies in which we live in what is this life in which what we see is all that we believe is able to convey the entirety of who we are. Because in that line we’re but lines and looks, and somehow a love thus for both. But only the both alone.

And thus we’re nothing more than either.

Which is what God is still trying to help us avoid, or at this point, at least alleviate. Because let’s face the facts, we’ve already fallen in love with the problem so the consequence are themselves already underway. All then that’s left is this sort of last gasp at the hope of grace getting a place in which to try and say that we are more than we’ve so clearly and culturally settled for.

But as to whether or not we ever agree to listen, well, that seems another matter left to the beholder.

For each of us are granted every day this same choice to make in regard to both what we seek to see and what we want to show. And this is even a quite monstrous decision in that anymore there are incredible depths and distances covered by both. Because we’re surrounded by things to see, and thus have an endless array of things to either try and emulate or elsewise seek to deny their time in our mind. And the same is said of what we seek to show in that we can do a great many things that impact or alter our appearance.

Or we can reach the decision in which we’ll do nothing and simply enjoy the simplicity of just being who we are without walking any further within that wanting for the world’s welcome or acceptance or input or insistence.

But that’s such an uncommonly chosen direction for a reason.

And that is because it doesn’t please people. It doesn’t play into this superficial society seeking to only see perfection upon the surface. It’s a life lived for more than six-packs and lipsticks. But the world around us loves those things more than say the thoughts we think or the dreams we have or the changes we’ve made or the improvement we’ve got underway. No, the world wants to remain lost within the surface of each of us.

It’s just entirely on us each them as to whether we continue to give in and go along or let them simply drift away as we swim deeper into the actual depths of why we’re here.

Which actually isn’t to be really concerned with looks at all. Because when you think about it, how we look is about one of the most glaring aspects of our existence that we had absolutely no say in coming out however they have. We didn’t get to pick our hair color, or how much we have. We didn’t get to pick the color of our eyes, most just got brown. We didn’t choose our height, God simply had us stop growing at some point. Our skin color, a clear favorite topic of division within this dominion of deceit and indifference, we had absolutely no say in it.

And all of the above, outside of medical intervention, they’re all also entirely inalterable.

So then why do we live on the surface when it’s defined by so many things that we didn’t and still don’t have a say in? And that’s not to say that we have much more of a voice in other aspects of our lives, but we’ve clearly got at least some! I mean, we can decide what we eat. We can choose for ourselves where we work. We can sift through all the options and pick for ourselves what our hobbies are or what car we drive. For example, I have found in my aging self that I utterly despise professional sports, and pretty much sport altogether because of what our society has made of it what with all the idolatry and greed.

And yet I, in fact, went to college with the initial idea of being a sports reporter on the news, or then a person working in sports management, or then a PE teacher with hopes of being the football coach too. And yet now I hate it. Never used the degree that I got in it. Have no plans to. Know why? Because I did it all thinking that it was who I was simply because I’d grown up around people so consumed in athletics that I became the same.

I’ve literally not watched a single play from snap to whistle in going on a decade! And I personally adore that fact!!

Because it’s my choice, and it’s been made for my reasons alone. Not those of anyone around me, dad still loves watching the games. It was done because I wanted to be free from something I no longer saw any worth within. And the same is now coming around to being said of this recent body-building phase I’ve so foolishly gotten myself confused within.

I’m sick of the vanity. I’m sick of living a life lost inside the surface. In fact, the only things in life that seem to make any sense anymore are things like this that so few people know about that I know it’s being done for the right reasons. For there is something magnificently special about doing something that nobody would miss were you to quit.

It means you’re doing it because you feel you should, not because someone or something else has inspired you to out of some external expectation. No, I write these daily Bible posts because it’s who I am inside and what I wish to do with my life whether or not anyone else ever reads them. This is my opportunity to share a bit of the light that’s long been lost inside of me while I lived on only the outside.

And that’s my point for today. It’s that all of us have a light within us that is the life of the Savior who died to make our soul His throne. And that, in light of that, we mustn't ever hide that light or dim that light or conceal that light behind that which blurs or distracts or misdirects. No, rather we are all cities called to stand and shine upon a hill of hope to which we cry out for all the world to come and taste what we've found in faith.

And we simply cannot do that best unless we allow to be stripped away every worldly distraction that mankind has designed to hide who we are and why we're here.

Which is the point that so many of us have missed for longer than we may ever realize. That as much as we're here for more than heaping up worldly wealth, my friends, so too are we more than the worldly self. It's like a lightbulb, what we see on the outside is just glass, but the part that makes it shine, and thus gives it it's very purpose, well that part's inside and it only does the job it's made to do when it's connected to the source that gives it the strength to shine so bright.

And even further, if you were to paint that light bulb or cover it with stickers or wrap a bunch of cloth around it, how much less would that light inside then be able to share its purpose with those around it?

No, it would begin to lose its very reason for being should the light inside be forced to go through more layers.

So why then do we live adding layers to us? Shouldn’t we instead be allowing Him to peel them away so that we’re better able to shine?

That’s what we’ve gotten upside down in life. See, we live in a world that is clearly convinced that who we are is only what’s seen on the surface. And to go along with this saddening assumption, we’ve all of us embraced these little concessions in which we cover up certain things or try and highlight others to show off our socially-considered beauty. Is that all that we have that makes us special? Looks? The clothes we wear? How we comb our hair? I’m in trouble if so because I ain’t got much left up there!

But I think that plays into it. We’re even to the point in which we’re selling chemicals and “scientifically formulated” and “USDA approved” medications to help us regrow hair. Does it matter if we’re bald? Are we less important if we have freckles? Do scars render us without purpose? Can we not walk the same places runway models do if we happen to have a limp? It’s all nonsense. Because our worth isn’t won within what we wear, flesh included.

And so maybe we should stop tying our understanding of beauty to what is bound to be left behind. For the soul is what makes us shine, but for so long now it’s been hidden behind what the world chooses to look at and appreciate more. And that’s not only sad but it’s magnificently stupid.

Because God gave us this flesh on lone in a place that, whilst filled with things that we can add onto it like gold rings and fancy clothes, it’s still a place in which we’re but foreigners and exiles. Why then get so excited about what stays on this side of the exit?

Seems pretty worthless doesn’t it? Living a life for only what we look like or can look at for but a few more years at most? No, there’s so much more to life than what our eyes can see. And since looks can definitely deceive thanks to make up and make believe, I think it best to stop looking at the things the world looks at or expects to see.

You know, kind of like He told us to.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold