Whatever is lovely … think about these things. Philippians 4:8
I know you will find this shocking … but I am not always lovely. That is right. If you don’t believe me, just ask my sons. It is hard to believe, I know.
My husband could also tell you some pretty unflattering stuff about me if he were not such a gentleman. Besides, he does not like sleeping in the doghouse, especially in the wintertime.
I don’t know about you, but when my stress and my physical pain are at their highest, that is when I find it the hardest to be lovely. It is then that, despite my best intentions, what I mean to only think comes flying out of my mouth. Romans 7:19 says, “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” This is hardly the lovely picture of grace that I aspire to paint in my life.
We might be able to show loveliness to our acquaintances most of the time, and to our friends a good deal of the time. But those closest to us know us where we live, ugly and all. Nobody knows us as well as God does. And here is the miracle, He loves us anyway, ugly and all.
The truth is that, no matter how hard we try, we cannot paint our own picture of grace. Romans 3:10 says, “There is no one righteous, not even one.” “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
If we accept God’s precious gift of grace through Jesus, He floods the canvas of our lives with beautiful colors of forgiveness and love and hope.And what could be more lovely?
How about you? Do you have thoughts of loveliness to share? Please comment below. Thank you!
Dear Lord: Thank you for loving us when we were not lovely and that Your grace is always sufficient. Help us to strive to be more like you. You are altogether lovely. Amen
The saying goes that “beauty (loveliness) is in the eye of the beholder.” Aren’t we, as daughter’s of Christ, so blessed that our “beholder” always sees our loveliness! I think we all share your same experience, my friend. When stressed, tired, afraid, frustrated, hungry (to name a few), we tend to lash out … and we usually lash out at those closest and dearest to us.
As Christians we must remember that we are far from perfect. We spend this lifetime striving to be more list Christ, to exhibit his Grace under ALL circumstances. That’s a tall order. And all we can do is STRIVE to overcome our stress, our tiredness, our fear, our frustration and our hunger. God reminds us over and over again that we need to turn over ALL of our burdens to him. That is how we one surrender, by one surrender start to overcome.
Each time we surrender our burdens to God, we GROW in Grace.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Cathy! What an awesome Savior we have that He is altogether lovely and, because of that, we can be lovely through Him too!