Les Mis is a gripping novel and movie that pits forgiveness against legalism, self righteousness against sincere faith, and redemption against condemnation. Midway through the movie, a young french revolutionist Marius happens to see the heroine, Cosette from across the busy street. She sees him as well, and a song of love and emotion fills the air, as it must have all the time back then! They fall deeply, hopelessly, powerfully in love, FROM 100 FEET AWAY! No chance her perfume caught his nostril, no chance she heard his baritone voice across the busy street. This was where they were smitten by sight. Can it happen? Can two people fall deeply in love from just visual cues that stir some inner passion no other person can? Another young woman, Eponine, is already in love with Marius, but he only sees her as a good friend, and, to her pain, he only ever sees her that way. What was the difference between the two young women? Some people would say that they realized from afar that they were a matched pair, suitable for propagating the human species. It was this inner evolutionary switch that was turned on, and they felt the need to breed! Sorry if that was crude, but it fit in here so well! Although I agree that we are born with certain signals God has built into us for many reasons, love goes beyond just reacting to sensory cues we receive at any given moment. One may see several women in their life that they are attracted to, but that doesn’t have to lead to anything, especially if they are already married. If we are lead only by our physical response to the world around us, we are in for alot of painful and harmful relational experiences. The whole fantasy here is that we long for that love, that irresistible attraction to someone, someone who alone can end our loneliness and emptiness this side of heaven. Somebody worth worshiping for the rest of our lives. While I can still remember being initially attracted to Nancy the first time I saw her, it was an attraction we all normally feel when we see someone who meets our criteria for beauty and style. Some of us are attracted to different shapes of anatomy, dress, style, attitude, activity, or ‘look’ . These visual and social cues send us information that this person might be a good match for us. I have been happily married for 41 years, and would never think of leaving Nance for someone else based on their looks compared to hers. We have developed a love relationship that has been forged In the fires of living in a broken world, and getting through it stronger and together ( with God there through it all!). That doesn’t mean I am not aware of women anymore. If we are honest, attraction is a part of living in a visual world. It is what we do in response to that normal attraction that either makes or breaks our relationships.
If we are stuck in the culture that says, if attracted, then you must go after that person, then we will do just that, and ruin our current relationships. If we understand that visual attraction is part of living In a visual world, we will acknowledge it, and file it away without giving a second thought, or giving any energy to it.
Unless you are God, then you are hopelessly smitten from the start.
God sees us from across the busy square, and He is immediately smitten! He loves who he is looking at! When we study what God thinks about us when he sees us, we are stunned by the emotion of His words. Here is a short meditation on the love light coming from the one who sees us-
Let us make man in our image. In our image, the image of love, the image of balance, the image of perfection. Man and woman in perfect harmony, beautiful, naked and not ashamed. God’s intention was a perfect love in a perfect world.
Then the image was broken. Man chose independence and knowledge over the love friendship of his creator. The image bearer became the image corrupted.
The creator came to his beloved creation, and they hid from him. their eyes were opened, and they saw what evil intended them to see. They asked to be clothed so their nakedness would not be seen. Another image disruption from the enemy. God’s love would not be overtaken by man’s corruption, and the march through time has shown how the creator has worked to teach man again what it means to carry his image. Men have tried to corrupt the image, change it, rename it, and glory in its corruption, but the creator still cries out
“ those with ears, hear my cry, those with eyes, see my love, see what I am willing to do to have you as my own…..”
The cross was the turning point in the redemption story. We see the father’s anger poured out on the willing servant, the lover of our souls, Jesus. The scars are there to prove the lengths he is willing to go to to once again have us bear His image to his creation. Come now to his light, His love is always available and powerful to redeem your soul, and restore your sight to see eternal things amongst the ruins.
As we learn to accept and live in His love, our core being is affected, and we are able to start looking at people in deeper ways than just their anatomic make up, style, and body language. I may have been initially attracted to Nance from the outside ( very shallow I know), but after a few minutes around her, I was attracted to the person she was. Like the character in Avatar, I ‘saw’ her, and felt a connection going beyond just what I saw.
The movie shallow Hal is a comedy about a young man, formally a player, who sees a young woman based on her inside, not her rather enhanced, larger than life outside. Hall is smitten by her smile, her charm, her tender heart, and loving personality. His friends tell him he is crazy to date such a large, way out of proportioned girl, but Hal only sees her inner beauty, which reflects itself to him in suggested outer beauty. I won’t give the ending away, but think about the ramifications here. What if we saw people through God tinted glasses, the way He sees you all day. What if we were attracted to people based on their human potential, not their human exterior. Christians walking with God in the strength of his spirit in them can do just that everyday. I find that when I have started the day acknowledging that God is here, with me and in me, and loves me through and through, I tend to do the same. I don’t want to sound like a saint here, because there are days I chose to not acknowledge God In my life, and I do my own thing that day. Even though He never leaves me, I will live that day as if He did, and I will miss the chance to give His love to somebody who may desperately need it. On those days we are in sync, I tend to look for the less lovely people, by human standards. I purposely make eye contact, smile warmly, and wish them a good day. Some stare back in shock, stunned that they have been seen, and found acceptable by somebody. Most smile back, and I can feel them receive God’s gift of love and acceptance. This must be what Jesus meant when he talked about living waters flowing out of us.
Jesus had just sat down for a rest as his posse went into town for some food and drink. A lady from the city came walking up to the well near where Jesus was sitting. Jesus crossed a social barrier and asked her for a drink. The woman reacted by asking why a jewish man would speak to a forsaken gentile like her. Jesus responds by telling her he had water that would completely fill her every need. He describes this water as alive and able to bring eternal life to those who drank it. She begs for this new water, and Jesus begins to minister to her. First he lets her know that he knows of her past lives with men, and tells her that the spiritual live he offers is real because he is the messiah! Right then his disciples arrive, and ask him why he was talking to a woman. They only saw a second class gentile, where Jesus saw so much more. The woman came back with the whole town in town, and many people received the living water of rebirth that day.
God wants his children to be the light of the world, the salt of the earth, the hope for a broken world. He will flow out of us on a regular basis, and literally impact people we come in contact with. Most will be attracted to this spiritual water, but some will sense it and either run from it, or try to snuff it out. Asking God to flow out of you to the world around you is a request He loves to say yes to! I now purposely look for the outsider, the person without the ‘beautiful crowd’ surrounding them, in order to give them some living water from the source of all life, Jesus himself! I figure the beautiful people are already getting what they want, which is worldly attraction and attention based on their efforts to live the beautiful life. I say they are getting what they want, not what they need. I know alot of beautiful people who wish they did not have to keep up with the beautiful crowd every moment of every day. I would tell them it has nothing to do with whether they are attractive to one set of people or not. In this visual world, with so many different looking people, there will always be a group who finds one person more attractive over another. This leaves endless groups of people finding endless groups of other people either unattractive or attractive. You will never be seen as attractive or unattractive by everybody. This means you will have the chance to be uplifted and broken hearted every day. Why choose to live this way? God certainly does’t want you to. He looks at the inside of a person to find true beauty. The King of Israel, David, was chosen by Samuel based on God’s look at his heart, not the locks on his scalp. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for looking good on the outside, only to be rotting corpses on the inside. Jesus has a spiritual X-ray unit, and it penetrates beyond our attempts to look holy, together, in control, or better than the person next to us. Once we embrace His love for us, we end the games of looking good for the sake of looking good, and we develop deeper more attractive attributes that attract the right people at the right time for the right reasons.
If you believe that the God of the universe sees you all the time, and you believe that He loves what He sees, then you will walk through life with your head held a little higher. You will not be lifted too high by somebody’s second glance, and you won’t be brought so low when you don’t even get a first glance. God finds you irresistible, and that’s enough for me today!! Just one look, that’s all it took!
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