Character


 

À man I knew from my teenage years recently went to meet his Maker.  Apparently his wife had predeceased him by only a few years.  He was a little older than me and I didn’t know him so well but there was one particular memory I had of him.  It happened at a church youth camp.  I had looked on this bloke as a role model but was shocked by a rather scathing and derogatory remark he made about a young lady who was there and “unattached”.  I recall his remark because I was surprised some years later to hear that he had married that very same young woman.  I can actually think of two such marriages.  I’d overheard another chap also speaking in a very negative way about a young woman only to hear later that he too had married the woman he had belittled to others.  The wonderful thing is that both these couples were lifetime relationships that were a blessing to their families, their church and the community as they served together as husband and wife into old age.

Okay, so perhaps we can make some allowances for teenagers being rather analytical and even critical of the assets and liabilities of the opposite sex.  Perhaps it’s just part of the ‘dating game’ and maybe it’s not even uncommon to end up in love with someone of whom we were once rather critical.

But there’s another angle to this.  Blokes in their teenage years are often taken in by a pretty face and a nice figure.  But they wake up one day that this doesn’t always cut it when we’re looking for a lasting relationship.  I recall learning that lessons as a young single man – I was rather taken in by the pretty face of a new office worker – only to feel repulsed when she opened her mouth to speak.  It seems obvious to me that both the chaps who once belittled the women they married came to the conclusion that character always trumps appearance.

That was a lesson that Samuel, the Old Testament Judge, had to learn.  God sent him to anoint one of the sons of Farmer Jesse to be king of Israel.  Jesse had seven sons pass before Samuel.  When the oldest one came Samuel thought that the Lord had surely chosen Eliab.  However God said something very telling to Samuel, “The Lord does not look at the things a man looks at.  Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  Isn’t that so true?  We even have a saying to warn against that, “Don’t judge a book by its cover!”

This is so relevant in our day an age.  Think of our society’s emphasis on beauty and physical appearance.  The cosmetic industry thrives on this mistaken focus on external things.  So does the fashion industry.  So do the gymnasiums that sprout up like mushrooms everywhere in our cities.  It’s all about the body-beautiful.  But how much attention is paid to the inner person... to one’s character?

Sadly, the most beautiful body grows old and wrinkled.  Well, of course we have solutions for that too.  It’s called: plastic surgery.  But that doesn’t always turn out the way we want either.  There was the much older lady we bumped into once who must have spent a small fortune on trying to look young and beautiful.  It hadn’t worked too well.  Okay, I know: beauty is in the eye of the beholder... but it seemed to me that there had been a few too many ‘nips and tucks’ and too much Botox in certain places.  My wife later summed it up perfectly: ‘Mutton dressed up as lamb’.

The apostle Peter put it well: "Your beauty should come from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit."  Here is a quite different standard by which to evaluate people.  From God’s perspective beauty is not measured by our hairdo or by the clothes we wear.  It’s not evaluated by the quality of our biceps and triceps.  As far as the Bible is concerned character always trumps appearance and Peter tells us that this unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit has great worth in God’s sight.

So how do we cultivate this inner beauty?  It needs to begin with a faith relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.  His death on the cross for us and his resurrection to new life transforms all those who put their trust in Him.

John Westendorp
2MaxFM 16/3/2025

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