Skin Deep

1 Samuel 2:12-21 (The Message)

12Eli's own sons were a bad lot. They didn't know GOD and could not have cared less 13about the customs of priests among the people. Ordinarily, when someone offered a sacrifice, the priest's servant was supposed to come up and, while the meat was boiling, 14stab a three-pronged fork into the cooking pot. The priest then got whatever came up on the fork. But this is how Eli's sons treated all the Israelites who came to Shiloh to offer sacrifices to GOD. 15Before they had even burned the fat to GOD, the priest's servant would interrupt whoever was sacrificing and say, "Hand over some of that meat for the priest to roast. He doesn't like boiled meat; he likes his rare." 16If the man objected, "First let the fat be burned--God's portion!-then take all you want," the servant would demand, "No, I want it now. If you won't give it, I'll take it." 17It was a horrible sin these young servants were committing--and right in the presence of GOD!-desecrating the holy offerings to GOD.

18In the midst of all this, Samuel, a boy dressed in a priestly linen tunic, served GOD. 19Additionally, every year his mother would make him a little robe cut to his size and bring it to him when she and her husband came for the annual sacrifice. 20Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, saying, "GOD give you children to replace this child you have dedicated to GOD." Then they would go home.

21GOD was most especially kind to Hannah. She had three more sons and two daughters! The boy Samuel stayed at the sanctuary and grew up with GOD.

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I like my meat rare, thank you. It was probably more than just preference to have their meat rare for the sons of Eli.

Samuel in his little linen tunic and robe – how cute. And it was probably more than cute little Samuel tottering around in the sanctuary of God too.

Anyone knows what its like want something, to want it now, and to want it real bad too?

I visited the dermatologist the other day. It was my third trip after three courses of antibiotics over a period of two years in the big battle between the colony of red angry pimples and me. Oh yes, not to mention the battlefield after the rampage – blotchy red cheeks and forehead after the make-up comes off.

Make-up? I hear you say.

Yes, make-up.

I wear it. And beauty, I contend, is only skin-deep.

Skin-deep because it all boils down to the sebaceous glands that are found just underneath the surface of the skin, and skin-deep because we live in a culture that, whether we care to admit it or not, thrives on appearances, glitz and glamour. We benchmark ourselves against the images that we see on the covers of Vogue, Cleo and Elle.

In Excuse me, do you want to be a model? (Mon, Jan 24, 2005) the Straits Times(http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg) reported how some “illegitimate” modeling agencies have been using the talent-scouting ruse to get their income from aspiring teenage models – getting them to pay hefty sums on portfolios, composite cards and grooming classes. One of the director’s of a modeling agency made this remark for model wannabes: “Look in the mirror before building the dream of being a model. It’s a hurtful business.”

A hurtful business indeed. So do sniffle that snigger in the background before you poo-poo me and write me off as shallow, pathetic, and insecure about who I am. We live in a self-conscious world after all. We uphold noble principles when we say that appearances don’t matter, since it’s the substance that counts.

A whole lot of bullocks? Or is it? So what really counts?

I have a feeling that the problem with us is not just because we want things, but because we want them now.

Jealousy. Envy. Strife.

James candidly asks, “Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.” (James 4:1-2)

Do not ask? The question drops like a ton of bricks.

God knows I’ve asked. Prayed I have alright in my earlier years, from asking God to heal those angry spots sprouting up all over my face, to flattening that protruding tummy, to slimming down what a dear friend of mine labeled as thunder thighs.

So the ball must now lie in God’s court? His fault for not seeing my anguish and hearkening to my desperate pleas?

“You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” (James 4:3)

There you go. Not because God is sadistic Big Brother – sitting back and enjoying the show as we struggle to fight ridicule and shun the same sense of shame that Adam and Eve must have felt when they fell from grace and as their glory fell away - that they were no longer free to simply be themselves.

We live in a world that is far from being gracious. And so frustrations escalate and exacerbate our sense of shame for not daring to simply be ourselves for all that we are, in a world that simply does not love us for all that we are.

No, not because God is sadistic, but perhaps because He knows better than any of us do what this sort of fame and beauty can do to us ungracious creatures. A cursory glance through the tabloids of celebrities and stars should convince you of that.

So God never meant for us to look good? Is beauty something that we should not desire?

Sure it is that God meant us to look good. If every man desires to be the Hero, so every woman desires to be the Beauty for her Hero. We can only imagine how stunning Solomon’s bride must have looked – just go read the Song of Solomon. Bathsheba must have been quite an eye-full to have turned David’s eyes from God to her just like that.

All this said, a lesson we must learn from Hannah when we covet that which we do not have – we all may become beautiful through the passage of time, and through the taunts and the provocations, as we present our desires to God.

Yes, we may be asking amiss, but I think the point is not that we ask amiss, but that we are asking. The first accusation that James hurls at us if you recall, is that we fail to ask in the first place. It is through the asking, I contend, that our hearts may be altered, slowly but surely - sprinkled clean by the blood of Christ that washes away all our sins and covers all our shame. It is through the asking that we present our bodies as living sacrifices before God and allow our minds to be constantly renewed and transformed – not by might, not by power, but by His Spirit.

Healing and change comes from inside out, and so do the answers for our prayers and our desires for beauty. “Trust in the Lord and do good,” says David, “Dwell in the land, feed on His faithfulness, Delight yourself in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.” (Ps 37:3-4) And so it is, that when our desires do come, they are a tree of life (Pr 13:12) – not because the desires granted us are in themselves any different, but because we may handle them well and handle them right, as we live free from the trappings of our culture.

As I mentioned previously that the greatest miracle of all for Hannah was not the birth of Samuel but the transformation that took place in Hannah; so it follows that the greatest miracle is not that God would grant us our desires, but the miracle that takes place in our hearts as they are tempered to know how to enjoy those desires that He wishes to grant us.

And the even greater miracle?

That God does exceedingly abundantly over and above all that we could ask for or possibly imagine. The blessings that we reap are far more abundant than the desires with which we have learnt to dedicate to God. Hannah poured out her desire to God, trusted Him with her desire, holding His gracious gift with an open palm before Him, and God blessed her with more. Three sons and two daughters to be exact.

What shall we make of this?

One thing we can be sure of, that just as Samuel grew up with God, so our desires are matured in the wisdom of God as we dedicate them to Him, and we are blessed with more. Blessings and miracles manifold to be exact.