Recently (just yesterday), I was thinking about the idea of what is beauty in God’s eyes. We can identify good behaviors and attitudes as described Biblically but there isn’t a Biblical definition of beauty. That may be because it is in the eye of the beholder. But do we view beauty from God’s eyes? I think that beauty in God’s eyes may be a concept that is intrinsically tied to both physical beauty and life circumstances.

When I look around, I see a lot of beautiful and not so beautiful people in my eyes. The majority of them I don’t even know so I only compare their outside appearance to some ruler of beauty I carry around in my heart. But so many times, I have met people that I think are really beautiful people but, outside of my knowing them, they would only be one of those I would not consider beautiful from the outside. The dichotomy of my flesh and spirit come into full view in those moments. But, God views them as beautiful both inside and outside. He made them so they must have beauty.

It seems we consider our life’s circumstances from the same place we compare physical beauty – our own perspective. That may be our root problem with understanding God’s plans in our lives compared with our circumstances. Someone going through a physical ailment, a divorce, a strained familial relationship, or a loss of job will often look at their circumstances as ugly moments in life. I don’t mean to say there isn’t a ugly side to the situation and yet that is exactly how we identify our struggles – ugly.

God allows difficult circumstances, not to hurt us, but to grow us. We can only grow by looking at any situation from His perspective. That is the moment to ask God, "What do you want me to learn here?" or "Let me see what you have in store." These are the moments to hold on to Genesis 50:20 and Romans 8:28. But, holding on to these Scriptures isn’t like a life-raft of Salvation to keep us from experiencing any difficulty. These are words of hope to remind us that God has never left us and that our lives are not failures or in shambles because of our circumstance. Instead, it is the moment that our faith is tested and has the chance to grow like a muscle that is used and begins to grow.

So are we seeing the beauty in what God is bringing us through? Maybe it is in the end result of the situation. Maybe it is the process of touching God in a new way. Maybe it is the reaching out to others to create a stronger bond with another. Likewise, are we looking at others through God’s eyes and seeing their physical and emotional beauty or are we viewing from our perspective of beauty and seeing what is ugly and uncomely?

It seems to come down to this:

Mark 12:30-31 30 ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these.

If we are to change our perspective to be like God’s, we need to ‘Love the Lord [our] God with all [our] heart and with all [our] soul and with all [our] mind and with all [our] strength.’ Keep reaching out to God and He will be there. That’s a promise.

If we are to change our view to truly love our neighbor, we need to truly love God with all our soul, mind and spirit so we can see them through His eyes. Then we can truly change our lives, our relationships, our community and our world.