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| PLEASE PIN THIS IMAGE - How does God really see me? |
The dark cloud over me sat heavy and cold, even while my chest burned with frustration, my mind taking a downward spiral with each negative thought.
But the Holy Spirit never lets my pity parties last very long, and about twenty minutes later the anger toward my husband had turned into guilt and self-reproach. His lapse hadn’t caused anything near the end of the world, and he was doing the thing now.
But he was doing it, I was sure, with bad feelings that equated mine, though he would never show them. I hadn’t been exactly sweet when I’d pointed out the thing he’d forgotten to do.
Thus, the guilt and self-reproach. My husband is a kind and faithful man. He hadn’t deserved my cutting words, my snappy tone. Why did I always have to be so ugly? How did he stand me? How did God stand me? I claimed to be a follower of Yeshua, yet so often failed to live in His law of love. I had to be the worst human being on the planet.
Convicted, I found my husband and apologized, but his forgiveness didn’t make me feel any better.
I was no better than a pile of dung.
Ever had a day like that? Or, like me, many days? We want to be spiritual giants, but feel that, more often than not, we are bemoaning along with the apostle Paul that we keep doing the things we know not to do and don’t do do the things we know we should be doing.
The accumulation of stress is a huge factor. But another one is that many, perhaps most, of God’s faithful truly don’t understand who they are in Christ, which in turn reveals an important truth: how God views His people.
Enter Psalm 45.
Ostensibly, Psalm 45 is a wedding song. Indeed, it may originally have been written to celebrate the marriage of one of Israel’s ancient kings (David? Solomon?). But at the same time, it reveals the truth that I just referred to.
The truth about how God views His people.
Verse eleven states that the King will greatly desire the beauty of the bride coming to Him. Verses thirteen and fourteen continue:
"The royal daughter is all glorious within the palace; her clothing is woven from gold. She shall be brought to the King in robes of many colors…."
The psalm foretells of the Messiah King, and of His bride, the body of faithful believers. You may think, yeah, well, great, it’s talking about the Church as a whole, not about me.
You’re not wrong. But the Body of Christ isn’t some abstract concept. It is made up of individual people.
It is the beauty of the individual people that leads to the beauty of the body as a whole.
I’m not talking about societal standards of outward beauty. I’m talking about the beauty each of us carries inside by having received the Spirit of God and His love into our own spirits.
See, when we accept Yeshua as our Savior, He fills us with His love. That love washes away every past sin, and every future sin. And so when the heavenly Father looks down upon us, He doesn’t see our failures and shortcomings. He doesn’t see the ugly, fleshly side of us that insists on poking its head up and growling every so often.
He sees us as glittering with gold, as covered with stunning colors.
He sees us as He created us: in His own image.
This is the only perspective that matters. Not yours, not mine, not your frenemy’s, not your boss’s, not your abuser’s.
Why? Why is God’s perspective the only one that matters?
Because we live for Him.
We don’t live for ourselves or for others. We live for Him. We follow Him. We obey Him. We worship Him.
One day, your frenemy will pass away. So will your boss, your abuser, your evil ex, the friend who betrayed you, the parent who neglected you.
So will you. So will I.
One day, we will all be gone from this earthly life. And when we begin the next season, it will be in God’s holy presence, forever.
Forever is a lot longer than even the longest recorded human lifespan.
And God's presence will obliterate every evil memory we have of ourselves. In the light of eternity, such memories are not what matters to God.
Thus, they should not be what matters to us.
So the next time you feel like dung, or someone else is trying to make you feel like dung, take a deep breath, close your eyes, and remind yourself of this truth: God sees you as beautiful, worthy, and valuable.
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