“Your beauty should . . . be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” 1 Peter 3:3-4
Are you beautiful? I can imagine an entire array of answers. There are the “spiritual” answers, like saying that I’m beautiful because of God in me, or to deny any beauty because that would be prideful. Then there are the honest answers, which might be something like, “I’m not too bad,” but are probably more like, “not as beautiful as so-and-so, or as I used to be.” Or maybe your answer is, “You’re kidding, right? Have you actually seen this face and this body I’m stuck with?!” Unfortunately, that’s not an unusual response because of the pressures put on us by society to conform to an unrealistic ideal of outward beauty. As a result, some Christians feel we should ignore the entire subject of personal beauty.
You notice that in these verses, God doesn’t tell us to ignore beauty, or to not think about it. Rather, He describes what true beauty is. He redefines it for us so we can get our priorities in the right place. Verse three tells us what beauty isn’t by listing all the things the world would use to describe beauty. Then God turns the definition on its head by saying that true beauty is all inside. The hidden, unseen part of us that doesn’t show in any photograph. But long after all photos have faded into nothingness, our true beauty will remain. It will never fade. Our spirit will still be just as gentle and quiet as ever. If we treat others with kindness and gentleness, that will always exist. If we allow the peace of Christ to permeate our hearts, we will never lose that.
I’m struck by the fact that this is of great worth. Other definitions of that word would be valuable, expensive, costly. That makes me stop and think. What does it cost to cultivate a gentle and quiet spirit? It means we can’t indulge our prideful flesh. We are to submit to one another in love. We don’t allow ourselves to be the center of our universe. God is the center and He tells us to serve others in His name. It means we can’t allow our thoughts to charge ahead of God. We need to be quiet and listen for Him. It means, in short, we need to die to self. I know that in the end, I gain far more than I lose in this deal, but I don’t always remember that in the moment. Instead, I want the sweet satisfaction of revenge, or the luxury of self-indulgence, forgetting that revenge always backfires and self-indulgence is always empty. If I choose to give up those momentary “pleasures,” I will gain the true beauty of God’s gentle and quiet spirit, which will last for all eternity.