I stomped out of the house, fuming. Why couldn’t my husbandremember to do the simplest thing? And then, when he did, it was the wrong way.

The dark cloud over me sat heavy and cold, even while mychest burned with frustration, my mind taking a downward spiral with eachnegative thought.

But the Holy Spirit never lets my pity parties last verylong, and about twenty minutes later the anger toward my husband had turnedinto guilt and self-reproach. His lapse hadn’t caused anything near the end ofthe world, and he was doing the thing now.

But he was doing it, I was sure, with bad feelings thatequated mine, though he would never show them. I hadn’t been exactly sweet whenI’d pointed out the thing he’d forgotten to do.

Thus, the guilt and self-reproach. My husband is a kind andfaithful man. He hadn’t deserved my cutting words, my snappy tone. Why did Ialways have to be so ugly? How did he stand me? How did God stand me?I claimed to be a follower of Yeshua, yet so often failed to live in His law oflove. I had to be the worst human being on the planet.

Convicted, I found my husband and apologized, but hisforgiveness didn’t make me feel any better.

I was no better than a pile of dung.

Ever had a day like that? Or, like me, many days? We want tobe spiritual giants, but feel that, more often than not, we are bemoaning alongwith the apostle Paul that we keep doing the things we know not to do and don’tdo do the things we know we should be doing.

The accumulation of stress is a huge factor. Butanother one is that many, perhaps most, of God’s faithful truly don’tunderstand who they are in Christ, which in turn reveals an important truth:how God views His people.

Enter Psalm 45.

Ostensibly, Psalm 45 is a wedding song. Indeed, it mayoriginally have been written to celebrate the marriage of one of Israel’sancient kings (David? Solomon?). But at the same time, it reveals the truththat I just referred to.

The truth about how God views His people.

Verse eleven states that the King will greatly desire thebeauty of the bride coming to Him. Verses thirteen and fourteen continue:

"The royal daughter is all glorious within the palace;her clothing is woven from gold. She shall be brought to the King in robes ofmany colors…."

The psalm foretells of the Messiah King, and of His bride,the body of faithful believers. You may think, yeah, well, great, it’s talkingabout the Church as a whole, not about me.

You’re not wrong. But the Body of Christ isn’t some abstractconcept. It is made up of individual people.

It is the beauty of the individual people that leads to thebeauty of the body as a whole.

I’m not talking about societal standards of outward beauty.I’m talking about the beauty each of us carries inside by having received theSpirit of God and His love into our own spirits.

See, when we accept Yeshua as our Savior, He fills us withHis love. That love washes away every past sin, and every future sin. And sowhen the heavenly Father looks down upon us, He doesn’t see our failures andshortcomings. He doesn’t see the ugly, fleshly side of us that insists onpoking its head up and growling every so often.

He sees us as glittering with gold, as covered withstunning colors.

He sees us as He created us: in His own image.

This is the only perspective that matters. Not yours, notmine, not your frenemy’s, not your boss’s, not your abuser’s.

Why? Why is God’s perspective the only one that matters?

Because we live forHim.

We don’t live for ourselves or for others. We live for Him.We follow Him. We obey Him. We worship Him.

One day, your frenemy will pass away. So will your boss,your abuser, your evil ex, the friend who betrayed you, the parent whoneglected you.

So will you. So will I.

One day, we will all be gone from this earthly life. Andwhen we begin the next season, it will be in God’s holy presence, forever.

Forever is a lot longer than even the longest recorded humanlifespan.

And God's presence will obliterate every evil memory we have of ourselves. In the light of eternity, such memories are not what matters to God.

Thus, they should not be what matters to us.  

So the next time you feel like dung, or someone else istrying to make you feel like dung, take a deep breath, close your eyes, andremind yourself of this truth: God sees you as beautiful, worthy, and valuable.

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