Pretty Pig
(Be sure to come back every day this week as PastorDave leads in the celebration of Hog Week. Each day will be a new and interesting post having something to do with swine. And we are giving away, to some lucky T-blogger, a Grow-Your-Own-Hog. Check Sunday's post for details!)
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"A beautiful woman lacking discretion and modesty is like a fine gold ring in a pig’s snout." – Proverbs 22:11 (Living Bible)
I may be a minister, but I recognize an attractive woman when I see one. I think it is just an automatic thing for most of us guys. She walks by, or she could be comatose, but our eyes will notice. My wife told me, on one such occasion, “Do you realize how much that look is going to cost you?” It can’t be helped. Now the second look is the crucial matter. As Martin Luther said, “I cannot help if birds fly over my head. But I can keep them from nesting in my hair.” When a look becomes a leer, or a glimpse becomes a lust, then we have a problem.
A woman’s beauty is a magical, wonderful, and sometimes ugly thing. I do believe that a woman’s beauty is a gift from God. How she uses it is a statement back to God.
A fine gold ring is an item of quality. Few women in our culture today wear a ring in their noses, although my daughter probably would if she could get by with it. The assumption is that the owner of a fine and expensive piece of jewelry would treasure it. Its purpose would be to enhance beauty, a statement of refinement. Hopefully it would initially draw others to self, to enable one to help them to know her more important inner self.
What would happen to a gold ring in a pig’s snout? Soon it would be covered with dirt and mucus; soon it would be bent out of shape, and lost, because of rooting. To a pig, an acorn or root in the ground would be treasured far above the fine gold ring. And its’ loss would be little noticed or appreciated.
A woman, lacking discretion and modesty, is treating beauty with the same mistreatment/contempt/dis respect as a pig would treat a fine ring placed in his snout. Beauty is a gift, no more earned and deserved than a pig earns and deserves a fine ring. The person who possesses beauty should treasure it as something rare, and valuable, which has been given by someone very important (God). She should wear it in a way that brings joy and respect to the Giver. Really, all beauty should ultimately bring honour to the Giver.
How the recipient utilizes the gift is a reflection of his/her true nature. When worn with discretion and modesty, it reveals the presence of a more important inward beauty. If flaunted and utilized as a tool to manipulate and use others, it is evidence of a lack of inward beauty; of a hog-like character.
The beauty of a woman is far too precious of a gift, far too closely tied to God, and far too great a responsibility of personal stewardship to misuse and cheapen through indiscretion and immodesty. A woman of character-which is a truly beautiful woman- is too good for such.
