IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
Let me tell you a true story.
I had the great blessing of being married for 42 years to someone very beautiful. Apart from being physically attractive she also had a deep inner beauty which showed in many ways, rising to each new challenge with patience, trust and grace. Even in trying circumstances she was predictably at peace, full of faith and ready to give of herself to others. To have her near me was having sunshine around me, even on a very dark day.
You might ask ‘Are you saying that she was perfect?’
‘Well, for me she was. I could not imagine that anyone could ever have equalled her as my wife.’
When at times I told her how lovely I thought she was she would smile modestly and say “the beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.
I was content with that. She had happily received my compliment in the best possible way. After all it was not so important whether she or others shared my opinion but I think that those who really knew her also admired and loved her. Understandably I knew her best and loved her most: I was her lover and she was mine.
I remember her saying not long before her final illness ‘the worst thing about us loving each other so much is that at some stage one of us will leave the other’. She then went on to unselfishly say that she thought I would go first and that she would like to be here to the end for me. Also, she thought that she would manage on her own better than I would.
When she went to Jesus after a dreadful battle with pain aged just 63 years, I felt as though my heart had been torn apart and ripped out of me. I was left with a broken heart and a broken body. I was diagnosed soon afterwards to have extensive metastatic cancer. But I was not fully broken and with the Lord’s help I am still running (perhaps more like Jacob – limping) ‘the race’ which for me has not finished yet.
Matthew records that at Jesus’ baptism, and again when he was transfigured, His Father spoke from heaven saying “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”.[1] This world despised His beauty; disdained and crucified Him. But the One Who really mattered, His Father, supremely delighted in Him.
Paul writes as follows of those who believe in Jesus and who are, therefore, by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit “in Christ”:
“He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love”;[2]
“having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved”.[3]
“to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight”.[4]
So I am pleasurable to God.
But how could the Holy God see me like that?
Because I am “in Christ” and He is the Father’s delight.
My failings? God does not see them as I am “above reproach in His sight” and it is “His sight” that matters.
I am very aware of my unworthiness. So is the Accuser who does not miss a chance to accuse while Christ my Advocate ever speaks on my behalf.
But “the beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and God sees me “in Christ”, Who is the Darling of His heart, holy and without blame. He loves me with an everlasting love from which nothing can separate me. He has been using my grief and trials to draw me closer to Him and I am just so very glad that the beauty is in the eye of the Divine Beholder and that I am precious in His sight.