Who Cares?

A close friend hit me up today, she shall remain anonymous, and was going bonkers about what she didn't have or felt like she should have at this point in life. You know those things that make you feel as though "you have arrived" -- the designer labels, fancy red-bottomed shoes, "hair long-money long" type things. Her five minute rant had been fueled by what I like to call social media stalking! We've all done it, and some still do it. Immediately, I cut the conversation off and had to remind her of her worth, her own beauty, and how labels don't qualify you as having made it.

As I went on throughout my day, her words cut deep: 1) I was familiar with the feeling of not being satisfied with my life after looking at another's seemingly poppin' lifestyle and 2) I knew that she and I were not the only victims of the "spirit of jealously and envy" over what we thought we had to have to feel better about ourselves. If we weren't the only ones, how many others were being fed by the enemy to feel like less or feel they needed more? Or for that matter how many others were the ones who bragged about what they had to make themselves feel better? Guilty, Guilty, Guilty. 

The great thing about the Word of God is -- it is brilliantly designed to handle every matter of the heart. 1 Peter 3:3-4 tells us, "It is not fancy hair, gold jewelry, or fine clothes that should make you beautiful. No, your beauty should come from inside you--the beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. That beauty will NEVER disappear. It is worth very much to God." Is God amazing or what? An on time word for a right now moment! Those things that we think validate us mean nothing to God, but everything to people, and I don't know about you but I'm not living for the approval of man, but the approval of the Most High. I want God to be pleased with my life (pleased with the beauty of my gentle and quiet spirit), and not upset with the fact that I idolized and looked for validation in material things and not Christ. Christ is all the validation we need, and with or without those things he tells me that "I am fearfully and wonderfully made". YOU ARE FEARFULLY and WONDERFULLY made (Psalm 139:14)! 

Now this is not to shade material things or those who own them, because every girl likes a nice bag and shoes, but this is to remind you to not put those things before Christ. Matthew 6:33 reads, "Seek first all of His kingdom and His righteousness and then all these things shall be added unto you." So seek God my sister, and when you feel the spirit of jealousy arising, refer back to 1 Peter and Psalms, and remind yourself that those things don't determine your beauty, Christ does! 

So who cares what everyone else thinks? Christ thinks I'm beautiful!


**Challenge: This week pray that God removes the desire to place things before him: stuff, social media, friendships, and that we desire more of God, and less of material things! For some we may not be aware of those things, so let's also pray that He reveals them to us!

xoxo, Carmen