My daughter really likes this song. She is the one who got me to pay more attention to the words and see what a wonderful message this song contains. I loved the grace message in the song and decided to post it to the blog. Yesterday after the song posted, my daughter came to me telling me she had had "a spiritual experience." She said she had been feeling moody, and that she felt God was asking her to turn on the radio. She didn't really want to listen to the radio right then, but she reached over and turned it on anyway, and the chorus from this song, "You're Beautiful," was playing! It was playing as a love message from God to her!
I love that! I love how He likes to surprise us with His love, or as I've heard one writer say, to "break through our world to bring us flowers." And I love the grace message in that experience she had. She was in a bad mood. She was not being super spiritual. And that was the moment God chose to say, "You're beautiful!"
I think it illustrates so well that our beauty in His eyes is NEVER determined by how we act, think, or feel. It's based on the work of Jesus for us and on His own heart of love. I love how we can rant and rave and act dumb and even seem to lose our way, and we're still just as held, loved, accepted and beautiful as ever. Our acceptance before Him never changes with our changing performance! It's as solid as the work of the cross, and that's like eternal bedrock underneath our feet! I can't remember where I read this quote, but it illustrates this truth so well: "Grace is when you can act stupid in the morning and get blessed in the afternoon!"
Isn't Jesus the best thing going? For me, it is like Christianity just gets better and better the more I experience of Him. He is so deep, and the deeper He plunges us into experiencing Him, the deeper we see His love and grace reaches. Wow! He truly IS an "ocean depth of happy rest," as the old song says.
I think my favorite thing lately is how He constantly delights in us! I have my own share of issues and problems, but they don't seem very troublesome to God. He doesn't seem to mind in the least that I don't have my Christian understanding all worked out or that I haven't stopped every single wrong behavior. He just delights in me! His Spirit in us springs up in delight and joy - He is happy with us and rejoices over us with singing!
Thank You, Lord, for Your love and delight in us! Thank You that the presence of Your Spirit within is a constant reminder that we're accepted and delightful and BEAUTIFUL to You! And You are so BEAUTIFUL to us, dear Lord!
With love to all,
