“Men of Persia, Lydia, and Put were warriors in your navy and hung their shields and helmets on your sides. They made you look beautiful. Men of Arvad and Cilicia guarded your city walls all around. Men of Gammad were in your watchtowers and hung their shields around your walls. They made your beauty perfect,” (Ezekiel 27.10-11 NCV).
I am somewhat self-conscious, and therefore conscientious, about my appearance. I try to make myself “look beautiful” to others. I decorate the walls of my soul with “shields and helmets” of past success, which I recall often and display readily. Today’s reading in Ezekiel prompts me to get real and stay grounded. Stripped of the makeup of past accomplishments, I probably appear very plain. Yet, that’s how God made me; that’s how He sees me and that’s how He loves me... naked, plain, unaccomplished, and destined to become the dirt from which I came, and yet mysteriously, live for eternity with Him.
