Eccl 3:11 - He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so they say.
We see beauty as an outward experience. Whether it is looking at the physical or below the surface, our choice of whether something is beautiful is not based on appearance but on our impression of what we see at that moment. That's why something can look the same in two different contexts and be considered beautiful or not beautiful.... I.e. a dirty person may look unattractive in a fancy restaurant while looking beautiful serving on a mission field.
Appearances are judged by the viewer...making us a sort of god in the decision. We decide if something is beautiful at that moment in time.
Ecclesiastes makes a bigger application of this principle. The writer says that everything has a time when it is beautiful, and God sets up those moments. So if you feel like you are not beautiful, wait a bit. For God may be changing contexts to show your beauty.
The person of character recognizes what God is doing in their life and fits to those contexts. Instead of worrying about their appearance, they focus on the context. For instance, a rose may not like it's thorns and try to have them removed, only to later discover it was protection against animals taking its flowers. More bluntly, a person might alter their body to look good only to later find that it caused back problems or health issues. That's not to say we shouldn't take care of ourselves, but we should set the goal as context, not appearance. Letting God use us in His context creates a beautiful impression.
You can do everything to hold onto beauty and still lose it. You can try to gather all the knowledge of God and never grasp it. But letting God put us in His context opens the door for discovering both.
Stop trying to be beautiful in your context and instead let God decide what context to put you in. Then you will be beautiful all the time!
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