Beauty Is Not Always Good

Nahum 3:4-6 -  All this because Nineveh, the beautiful and faithless city, mistress of deadly charms, enticed the nations with her beauty. She taught them all to worship her false gods, enchanting people everywhere. "No wonder I am your enemy!" declares the LORD Almighty. "And now I will lift your skirts so all the earth will see your nakedness and shame.  I will cover you with filth and show the world how vile you really are.

 

Nahum’s last written words to the people of Nineveh revealed the root of its problem. She had let her beauty become her God. It left her faithless and enticed others to follow her example of wickedness.  She drew the people around her into her sin….multiplying the evil that its walls contained. God was going to destroy it completely…and reveal to the world just how evil it really was.

 

Satan is really good at hiding evil in what we perceive to be beautiful packages. What may look beautiful on the outside may be a trap…to lure us into something that God would not approve. I can think of many times when I have made my decisions based on the surface looks of the situation…and not really prayed very deeply to God for what he would have me to do. The results were not what I thought…and I had to eventually admit my lack of faith and connection to God so that he could begin to repair the damage my decision had done.

 

Evil is so disgusting to God. He will only allow it for a time…then he will bring it to an end.  Sometimes he will allow evil in our life simply because we chose it.  Sometimes he allows it because he knows that the evil will teach us something valuable about following closer to him.  I know that of I prayed more for God to guard me from evil …like the words of the Lord’s prayer he left us with….it would not touch me near as much.

 

Father…thank you for the reminder that evil…horrible as it is sometimes…has a purpose in existing.  Forgive me for the times that I have allowed the beauty of a situation trick me into a trap of sin. Help me to pray for your protection and covering from evil and sin. Give me the strength and faith to resist any more of satan’s tricks.  Amen.