What If Beauty Is Not The Point?

We name the tension between what the world rewards as beauty and what God values in the heart, then we put appearance back in its proper place. I share Scripture, cultural realities, and my own story to help you walk away with clearer worth that does not rise and fall with trends. 
• the beauty industry’s power and why the topic feels unavoidable 
• two church extremes that either dismiss beauty or idolize it 
• why 1 Samuel 16 clarifies God’s priorities without denying beauty exists 
• Joseph and Esther as examples of character outlasting appearance 
• why first impressions are human and how to live wisely “in the world” 
• the danger of making outward appearance the measure of worth 
• how beauty standards shift across cultures and over time 
• my personal experience with weight gain and chasing a quick fix 
If you found this episode helpful in any way, please share it with someone who needs it. 

Transcript

Welcome And Why Beauty Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everybody. Welcome to the Light of Life podcast. I'm your host, Rutendo. So excited as usual to have you back. If you're a returning and loyal listener, welcome back. If you're new here, it's your first time. This is a space where we explore a real and personal walk with God. Beyond any pressure, performance, or any complicated religion, our goal is to simply paint a very realistic picture of what it looks like to walk in relationship with Him on a day-to-day basis.

The Beauty Industry And Its Pull

SPEAKER_00 0:45

So today we're talking about beauty. Have you ever noticed that there seems to be an unspoken tension of some sort between what the world says about beauty and what God Himself actually values? So by the end of this episode, I want you to walk away with a clear understanding of your worth. Beyond just these appearances and what's painted on social media, what's painted in the press, in the tabloids, by social circles. I want you to have a clear idea of where beauty fits in your identity. The topic of beauty is something that has truly taken the world by storm. And I'm not just trying to exaggerate this. This is a fact. If you're exposed to any form of media, you know that this has been a topic and a trend for a very long time. The beauty industry, it's a multi-billion dollar industry from YouTube makeup tutorials. I remember when I first started really trying to find out, okay, how do I do my makeup? There were thousands of videos on YouTube, on Facebook, on all these different platforms where I could get to know where people were teaching these videos. And that was some of the most consumed content. Now, of course, people realize it's not really sustainable to have makeup all the time. You're going to need to take it off. It's not good for your skin. Some contains toxic chemicals. So people began to move away from makeup. And of course, the moneymakers still discovered that. And now the money is in skincare products. So a lot of billionaires, if you also look, are coming from the beauty industry. We were so used to the billionaires coming from oil, mining, farming, things like that. But now, of course, in the late 2000s, early 2000s, late 2000s, a lot of billionaires came from tech. Now, a lot of people are migrating even from the entertainment space, which is still a lucrative industry to be a part of, but they're actually doubling, tripling their wealth, moving into the beauty space. We have the likes of Rihanna with the Fenty Beauty. We had Kim Kardashian. I think she had KKWU Beauty, and I'm not sure what's going on with that now. And a lot of famous people. The same Rihanna moved from makeup. She's also doing skincare products. So these are people that are moving into the beauty space. And I'm including fashion and personal style as well in there, because people are obsessed with youth. People are obsessed with looking good. People are obsessed with these realistic sometimes, but mostly unrealistic standards. Even if we're not talking of celebrities, professions such as aestheticians, people who own spas, salons, these are very profitable businesses. So clearly, without a shadow of a doubt, this is a relevant topic. And beauty actually matters in the world that we are living in right now.

Church Extremes And The Middle Way

SPEAKER_00 4:45

And my experience with this topic of beauty has actually been quite interesting. Of course, I'm a church girl. If you're new here, I grew up in the church and I welcome those who are not very well versed, who did not grow up in the church. You can live vicariously through me, okay? You can hear my experiences and you let me know what you think. In this particular denomination that I was a part of in my preteens, the topic of beauty was almost never discussed. And if it was mentioned, it was often framed as something that either didn't matter or even something to downplay. When it came to marriage, I remember we did so many of these youth programs and premarital programs. And the teaching was very clear, very, very clear. Ignore looks, focus on whether the person loves God, whether they know the church tenets, whether they are modest dressing, and if they love God wholeheartedly, that's the wife that you need. And while there is some truth in that, I do concede, I feel like something was missing. I felt like that, but I never had the guts to say it out. Then when I grew, of course, in faith and I began to explore other brands of Christianity, I stepped into more interdenominational spaces. And suddenly, with the pendulum swung in the opposite direction. Looking at the world of televangelists and leaders of megachurches, there has been an emphasis on appearance. In those years, you would see televangelists on magazine covers. It was like a dream, dressed in designer clothes, polished, put together. You would swear that they smell like peaches and cream. There's nothing that goes wrong in their lives. Presentation became a huge part of the message. Not that there's anything wrong, it was just how the delivery had slowly evolved. Whether intentionally or not, people began to absorb a different idea that how you look matters a lot. We have started to see real life consequences. Like there are preachers who are actually divorcing their wives that they started out with, marrying a new camera-ready, magazine-suited wife, but they don't really consider anything else much beyond that. And also at the end, naturally, that same union will come to an end because it was superficial. So now we're left with two extremes. One side is saying beauty doesn't matter at all. And the other side is saying beauty matters more than we admit. So today I want us to sit in that tension, those two tug of wars, or that tug of war between the two sides, because the truth is not found in either one extreme. I advocate for balance in everything. That's why today's conversation I have decided to title it Beauty is Something, Beauty is nothing.

David And The Heart Versus Looks

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Now, let's bring this into scripture because this is where the tension becomes very clear. 1 Samuel 16, verse 7. If you're well versed with scripture, you know this story. This is the story where King Saul, the first king of Israel, has disappointed the Lord, and the Lord says, I have now rejected him. Now the Lord said to Samuel, You have mourned long enough for Saul. I have rejected him as the king of Israel. So fill your flask with olive oil and go to Bethlehem. Find a man named Jesse who lives there, for I have selected one of his sons to be my king. So of course, there was a whole discussion that happened in between, and Samuel did as the Lord asked, and he went to Jesse's house. He gets to Jesse's house and he decides to do the purification right for his sons. And then he saw this peculiar-looking son, handsome. I understand he was a heart troub-looking, kingly type of guy. Then Samuel the prophet says, Surely this is the Lord's anointed. This is now verse 6. He looks at the boy from the outside without considering anything else, and he said, Right, that's what I'm talking about. That's the face and the look of a king. But immediately the Lord said to Samuel, Don't judge by his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn't see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. So immediately when this was when Samuel receives this word, he asks Jesse, Don't you have any other sons? And of course, now Jesse reveals that I have a son who's tending to the sheep and the goats. And then he said, Call that one. I'm going to wait for him. And finally, when David was called and he arrived, God confirmed that he is the one. This is the confusing part now. Verse 12 said, So Jesse sent for him. He was dark and handsome and with beautiful eyes. And the Lord said, This is the one, anoint him. That seems a bit like a contradiction or a discrepancy or a paradox. I don't know how you would really interpret this. Because just a few verses before, the Lord had said, Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Yet in the same scripture, almost in the same breath, David is finally presented, and the scripture tells us that he was ruddy with beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance. And I remember reading that, I was very confused, thinking, why are these things mentioned and causing a bit of a contradiction? Because clearly David had the heart to appeal to God, and that was the qualification, that was the decisive factor. And at the same time, the text does not ignore his physical appearance. In fact, the text goes on to acknowledge that David was, I wanted to say, foined. He was foin if I'm putting it in ebonics, you know. Why mention all that? If God prioritizes the heart and he doesn't look at the outward appearance, why did the scripture mention it at all? So we need to consider the narrative context of it all. I know this is the word of God, but a lot of people think that it was dictated literally from God, pen to paper. But there are people who actually wrote, and there were redactors that put the things together to form one cohesive text. So a lot of times the narrators that told the stories, because we're not getting the events in real time, we are getting them narrated to us, we have to consider they had their own emphasis and then audience and a core message they wanted to advance that they wanted to convey to their audience. So each, just like if you look at the narrative of the Kings, first and second Kings, and the narrative of Chronicles, the Chronicler, they call him or her, there are certain discrepancies, but we understand those discrepancies because the audience were completely different, the timelines were completely different. So history will often have different emphases depending on the audience and the goal, the occasion and the purpose of the writing. Anyway, I digress. So the mention of David's physical appearance should also be understood in that way. In ancient cultural settings, physical descriptions often set the stage for the role of a leader. I hope that will help you understand why the writer would include that David was attractive. The mention of him being attractive is just emphasizing that God's selection is not about what people see first. I think it also had to be mentioned because God said, in the previous verses, he had said, I don't see as man sees. David was also handsome, but because he had the heart that had been conditioned and created for the job that he was to be anointed for, God said, Yes, this is my guy. And he just so happened to be handsome. If you also look at some biblical examples, we have the well-revered Joseph, who was in the book of Genesis, chapter 39. In verse 6, Joseph is described as well-built and handsome. Yet his moral integrity is what was being highlighted throughout the narrative of Joseph. Him rejecting Potiphar's wife. A lot of times when guys know that they look good and they have the six peg and whatever, they see it as an excuse to be a ladies' man. But here the scripture is telling us that though Joseph was well built and handsome, he still upheld his moral values in rejecting Potiphar's wife. And ultimately the narrative is just highlighting how much of a class act that he was. We also have the beautiful Queen Esther. You see how I described her? Because whenever you say Esther, to us, because we are seeing as humans see, and we the thing that we relate to Esther is her beauty. Yes, it was mentioned, but the whole story was really about divine providence, and it was about how her courage and wisdom and faith led her to intercede for an entire people, an entire nation. A lot of people would just say Esther was beautiful. Esther was beautiful, but Esther was virtuous. Esther was a faithful woman. She was courageous and tenacious. Those are the things that we need to concentrate on because it was her beauty that got her in the door, but it was her virtue that caused her to stay. Now, let's continue in the spirit of being honest.

Joseph Esther And What Endures

SPEAKER_00 16:54

I hope you would appreciate that. Beauty exists. I don't want you to think that I am trashing beautiful women and I'm saying you should just not care about. Well, I'm taking you somewhere. Beauty exists and it is real and it is never anything sinful. From the very beginning, if you read the book of Genesis, the creation account, it tells us that everything God created was good. When he would create it and he would see it, he would be like, hmm. The term beauty or the notion of beauty or the observation of beauty is not something that we created. It's just something that we inherited from the creator himself. So when scripture describes David as ruddy and with beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance, it's not vanity speaking, but we're just acknowledging his design. But another truth that you need to consider, I'm moving to the other extreme now. We are not just spiritual beings. We are human. Whether we like it or not, people process what they see before they ever get to know what's within you. Even studies have shown that within the first few seconds of meeting someone, judgments are already being formed about your competence, maybe about trust. If you go somewhere wearing maybe a bandana or something, people are just gonna assume that you are associated with some gang or depending on where you are. So it's no longer just about what's within you, like it's my heart that matters. Your appearance on the outside also forms an opinion about your inside. I'm not saying it's accurate, I'm not saying that. So I don't want to pretend that appearance does not matter at all. It's not spiritual, it's it's unrealistic, in fact. We live in a physical

Living Wisely In A Visual World

SPEAKER_00 18:56

world, we interact through physical senses, and we're seen even before we are ever understood by anyone. And while God in his transcendency sees what beyond what is visible, as he said to Samuel, the people we encounter every day are not God. You need to know that every day you're not going to see people who are transcendent as he is, they don't have that capacity, they are always processing what they see, they are responding to presence, to presentation, to detail. That's not necessarily wicked, it's just human. And you have to learn, we all have to learn to live wisely within that reality. You're not living in a world of Christians. In John 16, 17, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ says, referring to us, he says, they are in the world, but not of the world. We concentrate most about, oh, we are not of this world. But he said, you're in the world, which means we're not supposed to adopt, of course, the values blindly, but we cannot pretend that we're not functioning within the world. We're here, and we have to be cunning enough to survive the world that we're in. If you go into business, you're not only dealing with people who discern like God. You walk into your child's school in a meeting, in a room, not everyone is engaging you from a place of spiritual depth. There's nothing wrong with winning best-dressed employee, most presentable. It's only bad, I think, when it begins to consume you and you start harming yourself or others for the sake of beauty.

When Beauty Becomes Your Worth

SPEAKER_00 20:50

So I want to bring you back for a moment, just a moment, to the point of analyzing that beauty is really nothing, but I mean nothing in terms of value. Where a lot of people begin to lose clarity is when their outward appearance becomes the measure of worth. But scripture never does that. The description of looks and outward appearance is often just mentioned in passing. It's not the emphasis or the timeless principle that the narrator is trying to convey. God does look at the heart, it's true. But while beauty can be acknowledged, it is never the thing that qualifies you. Yeah, it may shape you, it's going to shape maybe how you're received. Don't get me wrong, it's always nice to have someone who's easy on the eyes in your environment, and it makes it a good environment. I won't lie, but I want to tell you that it does not define who you are. And part of the wisdom that we need as believers. As people who are living in this world, though we're not of this world, we need to recognize the nature of physical beauty itself. While it's good, you need to understand, and I know you know this is not permanent, it fades, it shifts, it is subject to time, it's subject to seasons. Yet, many women are taught directly or maybe indirectly, they're taught to build their confidence on something that they cannot sustain. Not only can they not sustain it, it cannot sustain them. So a lot of energy, a lot of energy is invested, and I mean invested in perfecting the outside. People spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on beauty treatments, surgeries, and the like, perfecting the outside while neglecting the inner life. But the reason that scripture consistently calls us towards character, towards patience, endurance, love, the fruit of the spirit, is because those things actually endure. When you develop a good character, you say patience, you develop kindness, it becomes a part of you. It's not seasonal, it's not something that's dependent on maybe how does this person see me? How am I received by my boss? How am I received by my professor? How am I received by my taxi driver? When you perfect the inside, there is nothing that anyone can do to separate you from that. It can never be taken away from you. There's also, you know, this assumption, I don't blame people. It's just the programming that is taking place around us. There's an assumption that physical beauty is going to secure deeper things, that it will make you more loved, more chosen, more valued. But life does not always support that theory. I want you to really look at this with an analytical and a critical eye. There are many beautiful women, and I know you know this, but they are single, they are just as overlooked, they're just as mistreated in relationships. That should show you that beauty may attract attention. It just gets your attention, but it doesn't guarantee commitment, it doesn't guarantee any substance. Beauty itself, one thing you need to understand, it is not a fixed thing, it's very subjective. That's one thing I realized. It's not something that you all see the same thing, it's interpreted by someone. I can see one person, like there are some Hollywood stars that people swear are heartthrobs or they're beautiful. But when I look at them, they are below regular. But the world swears these people are beautiful. The same thing, somebody may look at me and say, I don't get it. Like, why is her husband, why did her husband choose her? At the same time, my husband is saying, Oh, I chose the best of the best. So that's the danger of beauty. And relying on beauty is because it can be interpreted differently by different people based on their backgrounds, based on their preference. You're not safe depending on something like that. What one person elevates, another person may not even notice. The standard is constantly shifting across cultures and environments and across individuals. If you go to West Africa, the standard of beauty is different. If you go to other uh settings, somebody has to be extra stick thin for them to be considered beautiful. If you go to another part of the world, someone has to be curvacious for them to be considered uh beautiful. If you go to another person of the world, one has to be morbidly obese to be considered beautiful. If you go to another place, someone has to be dark, someone has to be in another place of the world, someone has to be literally white, pale to where they've lost all their skin color and any warmth to their skin. They need to be pale like a corpse to be considered beautiful. So you shouldn't rely on something that's so fleeting and volatile like that. You're going to find yourself building an identity on something that's so subjective. And you will constantly find yourself adjusting here, adjusting there. When trends shift, you're trying to adjust. I remember the eyebrows, we would do thin, thin eyebrows, then it was the thick, thick eyebrows, then it was the feather eyebrows, then afterwards, it was like the eyebrows that start out thick, and then they when you get to the arch, you have to thin them. It the trends, you can never keep up with them. The outward trends, you are more safer, much safer, going for the timeless inward beauty. So when we say beauty is nothing, I'm not denying its existence, I'm simply placing it in its proper position so that you understand it.

Trends Shift So Build Character

SPEAKER_00 27:30

It's not a foundation, it's not a source of identity, it's not even something strong enough to carry the weight of your life. So, this

My Surgery Scare And God’s Pursuit

SPEAKER_00 27:40

Woman Wednesday, I want you to hold this balance of wisdom. That's why I brought this topic up. I've learned from experience that beauty is nothing. In my younger years, I think early 20s, when social media was really blowing up and pictures and photos and videos were circulating, but I wasn't really aware of like Photoshop and all these different apps that people use to edit their appearance. I just wanted so badly to be confident in my in the skin that I'm in. So seeing the beauty standards that are shifting, and I had actually gained some weight, I actually found it difficult growing up to gain weight. So when I got into my early when I got into my early 20s, I gained so much weight, not a lot, maybe about 10 kilos or more than my normal weight. I was experimenting with diets, but I wanted a quick fix because I just didn't know that it took you eight months to gain the weight. Most likely it will take you eight months to lose the weight. I didn't know and I didn't understand that, and I didn't have the patience for it. And I also didn't have the patience to understand that I need to fix my body. It's about wellness, it's not just about outward appearances, because a lot of times your outward appearance reflects your inward health. So, as much as I hate to admit it, I flew out of the country. It was a one-day journey because I didn't want anyone to know that I had gone for this consultation thinking that I'm going to get cosmetic surgery, which is like liposuction. I went and I saw this guy, and I thank him to this day, because if he was just someone who enjoys money for just the sake of taking money, he would have just said, sure, let's do the surgery. I went there and he examined me and he looked at me and he said, You know what? You're young, you're really young. And the way I look at you, you know, you don't need to subject yourself to this. Let me give you a diet plan and a workout plan. Get down to this weight, and when you're happy, when you get down to this weight and you are at a healthy weight, we'll consider it. He gave me a diet plan and I followed it through and everything. But I remember that day I was so disappointed because I thought I was going to get just a quick fix. And I hadn't really realized how much my worth was tied to my appearance. And yet, when I was in that state that I thought I am ugly, I'm overweight, I'm not beautiful, and I want to look like these trends that I'm seeing on social media, that's when the Lord really began to speak to me. I had a lot of spiritual encounters in my downtrodden state. The world didn't consider me as conventionally attractive, but oh, he considered me attractive. My maker, my creator. I if I'm to tell you some of the amazing spiritual encounters and even my own calling into the work of God came during that time. Before I felt like I was getting it together or anything, that's when he was pursuing me aggressively. I'm just telling you my own personal story. So maybe you see that I'm not talking from just my studies, but from experience. So as we close out this episode, I would hope that you hold this balance of wisdom. Two truths for them to hold their truthful nature, they don't need to be mutually exclusive. One can exist and the other can exist in the same realm. I want you to understand that there's nothing wrong with presenting yourself well, embracing beauty as part of God's creation, but don't build your identity on that. Take care of what is seen. Yes. I want you to invest. Invest in the inner you, in what God gave you, in the real you. Just like now, you're not seeing me physically. But if you're listening, you're listening because of something that I'm saying that indicates something beyond my looks. And if you're a man, a guy, as you populate your inner circle, I hope that you're going to go beyond just the looks. I'm not saying looks don't matter. Consider that, yes, because looks outward appearance can also be a reflection of the inside. I'm saying go beyond that because as you pick your assistant, your future wife, your partner, whoever it is, make sure you go beyond. Don't look as man sees, invest in true relationships. Now let me pray for you. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for this episode. We thank you for helping us to understand the two dimensions

Prayer Final Charge And Share Request

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of beauty. That beauty is nothing, but beauty is something. While you see beyond the outside appearances, the world itself, we're psychological beings, we're living in the world, the world sees the outside. What we're asking for today, Holy Spirit, is the ability and the wisdom to balance the two so that we can be excellent in both outside appearance and inside depth. I pray, oh Lord, for those even that are finding partners, that are finding friends, that are finding associates, give them the wisdom. Just as you did to the prophet Samuel, that you told him that don't see as man sees. I look at the heart. Help us, Lord, to look at the heart. If we can do that, I know that we won't make the mistakes that even people that are in the world make. Thank you, Lord, for this lesson. In your name we pray. Amen. Thank you so much for joining me today. If you found this episode helpful in any way, please share it with someone who needs it. Now, this has been the Light of Life podcast, and as usual, stay in the light.