A Practical Walk

“Let your beauty not be external – the braiding of hair and wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes – but the inner person of the heart, the lasting beauty of a gentle and tranquil spirit, which is precious in God’s sight.” 1 Peter 3:3-4 NET

Before I dive in, I just want to note that the sentence above is much richer and more meaningful if you read the whole section. I’m just taking a little piece out of this secton that Peter wrote.

Why do we fixate on the don’t part of the section and forget all about the do part? I’ve heard of people discussing if this verse means it’s wrong to braid your hair or not. I’ve wondered myself how much make-up, jewelry and fine clothes are too much. But today I’m dwelling on the next part. If we succeed at not finding our beauty externaly, but still miss the mark on having inner beauty, we’ve completly missed the point.

What is a gentle and tranquil spirit? Well, what’s the opposite of gentle? The word harsh comes to mind. Have I ever responded harshly to my family in a moment of frustration? Unfortunately, yes.

What about tranquil? I think of the opposite of tranquil as chaotic. We’ve all seen that mom. Any little thing gets her frazzled. She freaks out even at little accidents made. Her voice slowly starts getting shriller. For some reason this is always so easy for me to spot this in others, but I don’t always notice it in myself until all the tranquility is already gone.

I want to be a woman with a gentle and tranquil spirit. The one who has God’s peace that surpasses understanding (Philippians 4:7). The one who trusts in the Lord with all her heart (Proverbs 3:5). I want to be like a tree, that is so firmly planted and rooted, even when the winds come it stands strong (Jeremiah 17:8).

I want to spend less time gazing in the mirror and dreaming of what I wish I looked like (Ironically that doesn’t ususally result in a very gentle and tranquil me.) and more time gazing at my Saviour (which I’ve noticed often does end up leading to more tranquility!).