Loving the Unlovely

Morning is the great equalizer. No matter how primped and polished you are during the day, unless you sleep in some form of plastic wrap you probably wake up looking like everyone else--a mess. Hair plastered down on one side and sticking up in all directions on the other, little chunks of "sleep" crusted to your tear ducts, and maybe even a bit of dried drool at the corner of your mouth. Yep, you look PRETTY! Thirty minutes later, though, you've got your new look on, the one designed possibly to impress or at the very least blend in with the rest of groomed humanity.

Do you ever get tired of the act? Look your best, speak the right words, fit into the expected niche that society has for you? You're not a sociopath; you don't want to deliberately offend anyone. But sometimes you wish the world could just accept you as you are: unshowered, unshaved, uncombed, and slightly smelly. Other than the possible exception of your spouse (who still prefers you wear some deodorant) the only one who wants you as you truly are is God. He actually prefers you without the pretense. Now how cool is that?

A great artist some short time ago had painted a part of the corporation of the city in which he lived, and he wanted, for historic purposes, to include in his picture certain characters well known in the town. A crossing-sweeper, unkempt, ragged, filthy, was known to everybody, and there was a suitable place for him in the picture. The artist said to this ragged and rugged individual, "I will pay you well if you will come down to my studio and let me take your likeness." He came round in the morning, but he was soon sent about his business; for he had washed his face, and combed his hair, and donned a respectable suit of clothes. He was needed as a beggar, and was not invited in any other capacity. Even so, the gospel will receive you into its halls if you come as a sinner, not otherwise. Wait not for reformation, but come at once for salvation. God justifieth the ungodly, and that takes you up where you now are: it meets you in your worst estate.

--from All of Grace by Charles Haddon Spurgeon