Beauty

"Beauty." Acrylic on canvas. 2012.

This is my very first prophetic painting. I made sometime in high school, and it came out of a place of becoming self-confident. I think it’s interesting that the Lord addressed confidence first when starting to teach me about art from His perspective. Art is super vulnerable. You’re really putting yourself out there when creating, and it’s very easy to be broken down by what people think of your work. While there are certainly elements that make a design good and pleasing to the eye, we easily can forget that creativity comes from the heart first and the heart is sometimes messy. Worst part is, we are our worst critics. If you struggle with beating yourself down and being hyper-critical about yourself, you will be the same with your art. I think the starting point for being a confident artist is becoming confident as a person, and that starts in your identity in Christ.

Ask yourself these questions:

1.     Do you feel the pressure to perform in order to please God or others?

2.     Do you feel like you don’t measure up to people’s expectations?

3.     Do you feel worthless when people criticize you?

4.     Do you talk negatively to yourself?

5.     Do you compare yourself to others?

If you answered “yes” or “sometimes” to any of those questions, it may be time to sit with Jesus and ask Him a few questions. Your self-worth and confidence are directly rooted in your belief in what Jesus thinks about you, and that stems from realizing your worth to Him. Worth is the measurement of sacrifice we assign to things that hold value to us. That looks like monetary payment, work to be done, or giving things up. To Jesus, you hold so much value, that He decided you were worth dying for. That’s a weighty thought… No, no, no… I’m not sure you get it. When we hear it so often, it’s easy to become used to that thought, and it doesn’t hold the same weight it did at first. Read it again: Jesus saw so much value in you that He decided you were worth dying for. Dwell on that for a moment and let it sink it. It's a sobering thought, isn’t it?

If He was willing to die for us, who are we to call ourselves worthless? Ugly? Useless? A failure? Who are we to devalue what Jesus died for? Furthermore, if He did all that before we were even born and could do anything to please Him, why do we feel the need to perform for Him?

Sit with Jesus and ask Him these questions:

1.     What do you love about me?

2.     What are some things I have spoken over myself that are not from you?

3.     Repent for those things. “Lord, I am sorry for speaking over myself. I recognize it is not from you and I break the agreement I made with it.”

4.     Ask for Him for the truth.

5.     Speak the truth over yourself. “I am . I have .”

6.     Ask Him for steps to engage those truths.

7.     Spend some time worshiping and thanking Him, allowing Him to lavish you with His love.  

Now that we’ve gone down that rabbit trail, back to the painting. The Lord woke me up one morning with the plan for this painting. He’s done that several times actually – given me plans or ideas early in the morning for something He wants me to do. He didn’t give me the whole picture right away, but He gave me a starting point and what the painting represented.

There was a time when I really struggled with seeing myself as beautiful. I knew that God had made me beautiful, yet I no longer saw it. I began to believe a lie that I knew was a lie, a lie so many people believe today, "I am ugly."

In my desperation, I cried out to God, asking Him to show me how He saw me. Very gently He said, "Allie, by whose standards do you deem yourself ugly?" Who told you that you are ugly? Who told you that you are anything less than I created you to be?

I thought about it awhile. There are magazines, billboards, models, TV commercials. Then it dawned on me, "The world. The world's standards."

Gently, "Did the world create beauty?"

No.

"Who did?"

You did, God.

"So, who do you think gets to define what true beauty really is?"

God is the creator of beauty; God gets to define what true beauty is.

He brought me to Song of Solomon 2:2, where it says, "Like a lily among thorns so is my beloved among maidens." The verse doesn't say she is the lily, it says she is like a lily. It also implies that she is the most beautiful of all. Who is the most beautiful lily? Who is she modelled after and who does she reflect? The lily is Jesus.

When God created man, Jesus - the glorified King - was the model. Therefore, each of us reflects God's glory and each in our own unique way.

God's definition of beauty is the reflection of Jesus' glory through us. It is not our own, it does not come from us. It is a reflection of God. It is as if a God took a piece of himself and implanted it in us.

Beauty cannot be defined by the world's weight or skin standards because those do not fully capture all of His glory. It is much more.

We are created in God's image, designed to carry His glory. That is what makes us beautiful. That is what makes us the most beautiful.