The right focus ...

Monday, June 3, 2013. Beauty can be quite attractive. There are many beautiful things in the world - and everyone of us is attracted by his or her favourites. Some like the best new mobile phones. Others love to listen to music. And many of us like beauty of women or men …

Beauty is fleeting …

Looking around in the biblical books, I ran into the following remarks, written down in Proverbs, chapter 31:

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. (Proverbs 31: 30) The verse is the end of a long part praising “The Wife of Noble Character”. It describes a behavior, which is called “blessed” in this old book of wisdom.

The key point here is: in what sense are we relying on beauty? Are we building on beauty?

Of course, there is a whole industry today for which beauty is the key focus. We vote for “the most beautiful woman in the world”, the “Miss Universe”. We have beauty everywhere around us - in many journals, in internet marketing. Traditionally, beautiful women are used to sell anything - from cars to food. The mechanism is clear: they are attractive, and they use the attraction to pull us towards some product. A very basic and effective mechanism.

Can we do better? …

**

First, we should perhaps note: there is nothing wrong with beauty. It is good and fantastic, to have beautiful women around us. When we have a beautiful wife and beautiful daughters, that is fantastic. But it is not the main thing.

There is a beauty of the mind. There is a beauty of the character. There is a beauty of our habits, of our behaviour, of our words! That beauty is more important than physical beauty. There is a beauty of the way we treat others. There is a beauty of our decisions, of our thoughts, of our feelings …!

The Book of Proverbs clearly points us to the value, which is in the beauty of a noble character: “A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.” (Proverbs 31: 10) This is said here about a woman, but of course it applies to men the same way. And it wants to set our focus to the right things, today and tomorrow. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts