Purpose

Beauty Obsessed

There are girls who put make-up on in the middle of the day.

Really, there are.

Just like there are girls who change their hairstyles and their clothes multiple times throughout the day.

As you might imagine if you’ve read this far, I am not one of those girls.

But I’ve tried to be.

I’ve packed make-up into my purse, stored a hairbrush in my office, and try to get excited about changing into a different outfit at different times of the day, but I’m just not  motivated enough to stop whatever it is I’m working on to care about these things.

Yet I’m still obsessed with appearances.

As low-maintenance as I am, I still care about what people think of how I look, what I wear, and the manner I present myself.

When I should be obsessed with an entirely different type of beauty.

Instead of focusing on how I look, I should be focused on how I make Christ look.

Instead of being consumed with what I wear, I should be consumed with the fact that I’m covered in His blood.

Instead of caring about how I present myself, I should be concerned with how I’m presenting Him.

Because I shouldn’t be obsessed what making myself look good, I should be obsessed with displaying the beauty that already is – the beauty of Christ.

What do you think?……

How would life be different if you were more obsessed with God’s beauty?


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Purpose

The Un-Plan

When I was younger we had this cool soda fountain glass that was inverted.

The wide part, which would normally be at the top, was at the bottom.

The skinny part, normally the base of the cup, was at the top.

On the cup was a 7-Up logo with their then tagline underneath “The Un-Cola.”

It was a pretty effective promotion. (After all, I still remember it and my parents kept the glass for years because it was so different.) The message was clear. Just like the cup was the opposite of what was expected, 7-Up was different from the expected dark cola soft drink.

Sometimes it feels like life is a lot like that glass.

It gets turn upside down, inside out, and every other which way.

Our expectations are scattered as life hands us the unexpected.

The familiar becomes foreign.

And just like 7-Up was “The Un-Cola,” we quickly realized that our carefully planned and organized lives are anything but.

Or are they?

Because although our plans may get inverted, God’s plans are still right side up.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we’d admit that we never really know what would happen anyways, so pretending that we are somehow able to plan for it was a delusion. What matters is whether our lives, as scattered or as jumbled as they may get, are being used by Him.

And as long as we are using our lives to be poured out for His purposes, we can be confident that our lives will be the real thing* – because our lives will reflect Him.

(*I suspect that my dad would have been one of the only people who would get this play on words. For many years, Coke’s slogan was “It’s The Real Thing.” I know my daddy would have loved that I knew that, and that I inserted it into this blog.)

Now it’s your turn….

How do you respond when God’s plans are different from yours?

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