ACE #355: Inside Out Ugly Heart Check

As I was driving down the street, our daughter begins to engage in one of her regular inquisitive-minded conversations with me.  I thought, here we go.

Her:  Mom, why do women wear makeup?
Me:  Well, sometimes they just want to enhance their natural beauty.  Also, some women think they need makeup to cover up blemishes.
Her:  What are blemishes?
Me:  You know, kind of like the marks that you get on your face when you get bitten by a bug or when you pick at the skin on your face and I tell you not to.
Her:  Well, mom, what I have learned is that is not about what you look like on the outside, but how you are on the inside that matters.
Me: You're absolutely right, honey.

This reminds me of when David said, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a right spirit within me." David wanted his inner person to change, where his thoughts, actions, and words could be reflective of a right spirit, but also to be pleasing to God. He was doing a "heart check."

Our daughter reminded me of a significant lesson - to shift the focus about being so concerned about our outer appearances as we are about what shows on the outside from the inside.  The children's song, "Inside Out" speaks to this - that serving God in spirit and truth is from the inside out.

When I was younger, my grandmother would always say, "Ugly is as ugly does."  I would look at her with my brow furrowed and my eyes slightly squinted.  I just didn't get it. Then I thought about the classic line delivered by the late Whitney Houston in Waiting to Exhale, "If you're ugly inside, then you're ugly outside."  It reminds me that the "ugly" is really about our behaviors and how we treat and regard other people and not about our looks in the body of Christ.  

Maybe instead of checking our reflections in the mirror constantly, we should make it common practice to check the reflections of our hearts. After all, that's where God looks. 

1 Samuel 16:7

⁷ But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”