Beauty or Beast?

"How do I look?"

If you are breathing, I can guarantee you have been asked this question at least 7 times this week.  If you are a man, asked by your wife or girlfriend, you have to be very careful how you answer this question.   The best technique is to form an honest, sincere answer while collapsing with either a seizure or made-up illness.  Why?  Because we will never come up with the right answer.

The problem is that women don't usually think of their looks the same way that a lot of men do.  Most men see their looks in high school, and stick with that thought the rest of their lives.  Some see themselves as irresistible studs that any woman would be lucky to have, even if their faces sag, their noses grow to the size of Squidward, and their eyebrows are so tightly knitted that they would need divorce papers to be separated.  Some see themselves as nothing but ugly, disgusting and a wart to society. 

I believe most men think of themselves as average.  Even if their flawless faces emit stares of all women and most men, or if they are sometimes blamed for causing heart failure in small animals.  Being average doesn't bother most men, so they usually don't ask how they look.  Our primary form of beauty care is a quick shave, hoping they washed all the blood and shaving cream off, and then head out.  We give our lawn more attention then we give our looks. 

Women are different.  Out of the three youth groups I run, I have 99% girls.  In my home, I have a wife and daughter, and two cats....all females.  I also have around 30 guppies in a fish tank out of which I believe 29 are girls.  Why?  Because they keep having more babies.  I am surrounded by the X chromosome, and if I had to express, in three words, what I believe most women think about their appearance, those words would be: ''not good enough.'' No matter how attractive a woman may appear to be to others, when she looks at herself in the mirror, she thinks: eh.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not trying to tear apart or make fun of women.  Please let me finish.

I grew up with G.I. Joe's.  Most girls grew up with Barbie, or another perfectly made doll.  Barbie was some sort of genetic mutation that if she was the size of a human, she would be 6'9 weighing all of 93 lbs.  My G.I. Joe was extremely self-confident and I never pictured him saying "Does my butt look big in this camo?"  But some girls grow up thinking that they need to look like Barbie. There is a multi-billion dollar industry devoted to convincing women that they are not good enough and they need to look better.  Cindy Crawford, Elle McPherson, and most of television push women to look a certain way.  Some men, even though they are as shallow as a puddle of spit, push their women to look a certain way even though it is impossible without a scalpel and surgeon.  These women are constantly searching to better themselves. 

Don't buy these lies.

If I could talk to all these women, I would tell them ALL the same thing:  There could never be a more beautiful you.

Genesis 1:27 says: So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

The same God that made the beautiful sunrise, made you.
The same God that created the waterfalls, the sunsets, the starry nights....made you.
You know the best news?  You are His favorite.  Out of everything He has ever created, you are His prize possession. 

Although we don't act perfect, our image is perfect because we were made in the image of a perfect God.  Self-confidence is a tough thing to grasp sometimes.  It's easier to grasp if we get to know this perfect God, and see the love He has for us. 

Right now, God is looking down on you.  He sees your image as perfect.  I can picture Him looking down on some of us and thinking "Why do you want so badly to change?  Why do you 'need' that new product or the next surgery? Why can't you see yourself the way I see you?"

If we had all God's eyes, this world would change.  Many businesses would shut down.  Many actors or models would be out of work.  If we all had God's eyes, we would walk around, look at each other and say:

There could never be a more beautiful you.