Beauty

Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house; So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him. Psalm 45:10-11

Listen, set your affections upon, ready your ear, mislay or be oblivious to thine own people and thy father’s house. Put them out of your mind. Don’t remember them any longer. The king will take pleasure in this beautiful sight; your humble attention, removing distractions of former attachments, entering into a concentration on him alone.

Beloved, as we lay aside our identity in Adam, including our natural upbringing, genetical makeup, personality traits, cultural traits, and persona, we set a gaze on a new identity, which is — the state in which we are being loved, receiving affection, and being admired by another. Not resulting from our observable qualities, but from looking away from these empirical attributes, we grasp something more desirable and lovely; a person; and the interchange with that one of blissful love and grace.

These folks may be called, “the humble.” the book of deuteronomy teaches us that the children of Israel entered the wilderness that God might humble them, to find out what is in their hearts. Was it their history, heritage, nationality, culture, etc? ” …whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.” 

And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. Deuteronomy 8:3

Deuteronomy 8:16  adds “to do thee good at thy latter end;”

Psalm_27:4  demonstrates the focused heart of humility, “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple.” and,

Psalm_29:2  “Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”

In the writing of Lamentations, Jeremiah expresses great sorrow. Beauty has gone.

Lamentations 1:6  “And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.”
Lamentations 2:1  How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
Lamentations 2:15  All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

But, lamentations chapter 3 describes the returning of hope. This is not a returning of natural beauty, but a steady gaze, a perception, an observation, an awakening: indeed a turning,

“My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord.” 3:18

Yes, all hope and strength derived from the former natural qualities is gone. I can only remember my, “affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.  My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. “3:19-20

But,

“This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.  

“It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.   They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. “

Now, it happens, and beauty returns. The writer speaks for all of Israel:

“The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. “

And in hindsight, and for next time:

” He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.  He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.” Lam 3:29-30

“For the Lord will not cast off for ever:  But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.  For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.” Lam 3:31-33

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