One thing I’m sure of. Women are designed to be beautiful, and men are designed to appreciate their beauty. God, being our designer, must have had a good reason for making us this way. We also know our Enemy has put a LOT of effort into wrecking His plan, which is another clue that beauty is very significant.
I’m going to start with an idea that might surprise you, but stay with me. I believe beauty gives women value. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that a woman’s beauty is one of the most important aspects of her existence. And I’m not just talking about a beautiful attitude or beautiful deeds. I’m talking about how she looks.
Okay, turn off those alarm bells and put down the red flags. It’s entirely possible that all you’ve ever encountered is the Enemy’s abuse of God’s plan. I don’t think any of us would deny that God loves beauty. Roses, sunsets, kittens, jewels, galaxies, rainbows—the list goes on forever. Should it surprise us that the grand finale of creation, a woman, was His most beautiful work of al?
What Exactly Makes a Woman Beautiful?
What makes a woman beautiful? Well, part of it is color: her hair, her eyes, her lips, her complexion. Part of it is texture: the smoothness of her skin, the shimmering flow of her hair, the glow of her eyes. Part of it is shape. Part of it is sound, her voice. Part of it is her warmth, grace, and softness. And part of it is simply mystery.
Listen carefully. All women have some beauty. No woman is entirely beautiful. We each, guys and girls, can choose to think about what is beautiful, or we can choose to think about what isn’t.
Sounds easy enough, but it’s one of the primary ways our Enemy gets us off-track. If you’re a female, I can almost guarantee that the first thing you see when you look in your mirror is whatever you’re NOT pleased with. Something is wrong with your hair, your skin, your face, your figure. You begin to plan a way to fix it (new makeup, a diet, new clothes, even surgery). But guess what? Many dollars and hours and aches later, you will STILL be able to find something wrong in that mirror. Maybe you need a new mirror?
No, my dear, what you need is to stop listening to a lie. The lie is that in order to be beautiful, and thus valuable, you have to be perfect. Even the closest-to-perfect woman you can think of is victim to that lie. In fact, women who are born with greater beauty are often the most in bondage to the lie. The rest of us figure out we have other ways to be valuable, but some of those poor souls never get it.
And of course, the guys don’t always help. They (being guys) are drawn to the high-beauty women and tend to ignore the lesser-beauty ones. But sometimes the gorgeous women turn out to be the most insecure of all and the least able to respond to a man’s love.
The solution to this is actually quite simple, at least in theory. Learn to look for and be grateful for (and enjoy!) the places where God HAS made you beautiful—and don’t worry quite so much about the rest. I promise you, the beautiful places are really there. Guys, look for those places as well.
Unfortunately, our preoccupation with not being perfect is only one layer of our brokenness. There’s another aspect of beauty that can be even more damaging, and it involves beauty’s role in the interaction between masculinity and femininity.
God’s Design for Masculinity and Femininity
A lot of what I described in the above “beauty list” is directly connected to a woman’s femininity. Her softness, her gracefulness, and yes, the profound promise of sexual pleasure inherent in her face and figure—these can’t (and shouldn’t) be separated from the woman’s attractiveness to a man. But what God intends for good, the Enemy has used for great devastation.
God designed sexual intimacy to be the lifelong spiritual communion of two persons, one male, one female. Radiating out from this center are other circles of interaction, including social, emotional, and physical. In our typical upsidedownness, we have put the physical at the center, and have lopped off part (or sometimes all) of the other ways of relating.
Cough, cough! Yes, I hear you, guy reader. You’re thinking I’m getting strange now. What on earth is especially spiritual about sex? More to the point, what isn’t physical about it? Well, I didn’t say it wasn’t physical, did I? I just said that couldn’t be the center.
I think this will be easier to understand, however, if we examine the viewpoint that puts the physical part at the center. After all, we’re much more familiar with sex-gone-wrong than we are with sex-done-right. Let’s start with the matter of our value as an individual. I hope you know that you are SO much more than just a body. You’re a unique person, with feelings and dreams and creative ideas, and the capacity to give and receive love.
When sexuality centers on the physical, none of these really have to matter. Your body is either attractive or it isn’t. You are able to perform sexually, or you aren’t. That’s about it. What’s more, if your beauty or your ability to perform goes away for some reason (age comes to mind), then at that point your value disappears with it. If however what ties a man and woman together is their spiritual appreciation for each other as chosen objects of affection and commitment, then the physical is just a wonderful bonus!
We also need to understand that marriage has the potential to meet some of our deepest human needs—and beauty plays an important part in this. Specifically, I’m speaking of a woman’s need for security and a man’s need for significance.
A girl’s earliest memories almost inevitably include the reactions of people to her beauty (or lack of it). As she grows, she observes the world clearly sorting between the beautiful and the not-so-beautiful. She watches her father’s eyes and notices his appreciation for physical attractiveness. She herself instinctively loves beauty: clothes, flowers, jewelry, the decorations in her room, and certain dolls. Something inside her wants to be a princess.
Our culture understands this desire far too well. Not only do fashion companies reap millions of dollars as the result of our messed-up mirrors, but they also feed our insecurities by continually redefining what beauty is. But because the physical stays at the center of our minds, most forms of beauty are being swallowed up by specifically sexual beauty. Even very young girls are learning to be sexy, long before they should be.
The Consequences of Misusing Sexuality
The problem with all this is that the very place where a woman is created to find her security, specifically the protective care of a man, is being destroyed. When sexuality (the draw of her beauty on the man who desires it) is reduced to physical terms alone, it becomes almost inevitable that depersonalization and manipulation will make healthy and permanent sexual relationships difficult, if not impossible.
What happens is that both men and women begin to see the female body as a commodity, to be prettied up and fought over and then used up and thrown aside. In this kind of world, a woman loses her faith in a man’s protection (or in many cases, never believes in it in the first place). Her only remaining option is to protect herself, a course of action that may in fact have been taught to her by her own mother.
This self-protection usually takes one of two forms. Some women choose to reject men altogether, through hardened feminism or lesbianism. But others spend everything they have trying to compete for whatever male attention they can get. They’re hoping against hope they’ll come upon a man who just might be different—who just might be safe.
But sadly enough, the men are also victims of the brokenness. Most of them have grown up with even less idea of what makes them valuable. Their world worships a few categories of men, primarily sports heroes, music performers, and movie stars. The average kid, who isn’t talented enough to compete in these arenas, is left to find some way to amuse himself. And one of the most amusing things around is all those sexy girls.
And so, he joins in the game. But one thing that happens early on is that the girls aren’t much more reliable than the guys. Not that some of them don’t want commitment. But in their desperation to satisfy their own neediness, they are generally pretty clueless about his. A few good rounds of high demands, followed (or even preceded) by rejection, and the guy too gives up on the prospects of authentic love.
Men and Women: Beauty and Significance
Rather than being the sum total of what a woman is, and rather than being a manipulative weapon in her self-protective arsenal, God gives each woman a real measure of physical feminine beauty as a gift to carefully prepare for her husband. Part of it is “public beauty,” something everyone else can enjoy. Part is private, meant only for him. If men really understood the treasure God planned for them to enjoy, they would see women not as playthings or conquests, but as individuals, each bearing a fragile gift, a gift that can only be given, never snatched or demanded, a gift intended for one man alone.
Listen carefully. Part of that gift is the breathtaking joy of sexual intimacy, free of guilt or shame. But there’s another part as well. You see, while a man indeed has a tremendous desire and need for physical sex, that by itself is not enough. Buried in each man’s spirit is that other even deeper need, the continual yearning for significance. Some of that significance can be earned in the rough and tumble world of masculine competitions and achievements. But one of the most important accomplishments available to a man is the wooing and winning of a beautiful woman—a woman who chooses him above all others as the man she will give herself to. That victory, however, will be empty if what he has won is a hardened, self-protecting beauty—no matter how stunning she may appear on their wedding day.
You see, while each man marries a woman who already has a certain amount of beauty, God assigns him the job of enhancing and nourishing that beauty. That’s what “husband” literally means. He’s a caretaker, like a gardener or a shepherd. God has some amazing rewards in store for a husband, based specifically on how well he takes care of his wife.
I won’t take time here to spell out everything this involves. But I want to point out that a wise husband and a cooperative wife can together create a beauty in her that goes far beyond surface features. As she lives securely in the garden of his protection and provision and patient love, her natural youthful beauty will begin to be replaced with a more mature kind of beauty, rising out of a calm and gentle spirit, radiating through her eyes and smile and gracious deeds. And it’s this beauty that will bring a godly man great joy, a deep sense of worth, and a place of honor among other men.
You see, as always, our relationships are designed to be the reflection of God’s relationship with us. God’s idea of beauty goes far beyond our imaginings. It’s a manifestation of His glory—poured into His creation, paid for by His sacrificial love—that results in our beauty, for His pleasure, and for ours as well.
