That Faith Looks Good on You

"Hey, seven looks good on me!” It was the day after our son’s birthday and Bez was so proud to finally be seven years old. It was a Sunday morning and he wanted to go in style which included his new sport coat and shiny black shoes. He got dressed, combed his hair and walked around the house as proud as can be, convinced that seven looked way better on him than six. I suppose it’s true in a way. Like a lot of kids, Bez likes picking out his own clothes but more often than not that has included mismatched outfits, Christmas socks with shorts, and for a long, looooong time the same Paw Patrol jammies every single day. Looking him over that day I had to agree, seven really did look good on him.

Bez walked into church that morning a little taller, a little prouder, a little more confident. He walked in knowing he was a new guy, because just two days before he’d been only six…seven is a whole different ball game.

There have been multiple times in my life where I dressed myself in fear. I let it rule my thoughts and my actions. I let it keep me awake at night, pondering every possible scenario. It would creep up when I was driving or rocking babies or washing dishes. Dread invaded both my days and my nights. And while I tried to put on a strong front, it kept me from truly trusting God. Fear didn’t help me.

Fear didn’t look good on me.

You know what does look good though? Faith. Faith looks good on you. The world watches for our response, and faith looks good on all Christians. I look back on those times and wish I could remember them as being full of faith. If I hadn’t let fear rule the day and I had completely surrendered, trusting that God would continue to be who He promised to be. Coming out on the other side, I see now that no matter the uncertainty, God never left my side. I would worry about the next day and week and month…but I always got through them. He was faithful. Knowing the big picture now I can see where His hand was moving. I realize now I probably would have seen His hand then if I had been more focused on Him than on my fear.

Fear didn’t look good on me.

There’s no denying that things look scary right now. Every hour there’s a new headline, new reports coming in. They disrupt our way of life and send uncertainty at us from every direction. Everything we read seems to breed panic. We go into the grocery store and all we hear is about isolation. We hear that everyone is in danger. We hear that everything is canceled or closed. It would be easy to go with the flow and dress ourselves in fear. Easy to read the headlines and listen to the news and let anxiety keep us up at night. It’s disturbing and disappointing, frustrating that everything seems so out of our control.

But that fear wouldn’t look good on us.

The current situation is supposed to scare us, but it doesn’t have to. We can be aware and take precautions without letting fear overwhelm us or stop us in our tracks. We can wake up, dress ourselves in faith and trust that the God who has been before us, behind us, beside us in every other crisis we’ve found ourselves in is the same God who is standing with us now. This pandemic isn’t the “thing” that is bigger than God. It's not the obstacle that's too hard for Him to conquer. The fear doesn’t get us anywhere. 2 Timothy 1:7 says “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind”. We can stand on that word and rise up in confidence, dressing ourselves in faith.

I guess that as Bez has grown, so has his fashion sense. As he matures I can trust him to dress himself appropriately. I suppose God has done the same with me. The more I've matured, God helps me dress in things that look better on me. In faith instead of fear.

I have pictures of Bez out and about in the puppy jammies he insisted on wearing every day for a month (pick your battles people) and I have pictures of him in his sport coat looking as snazzy as can be. He might look back on those jammie pictures and wonder what on earth his mom was thinking to let him out of the house like that, but he can look back on his “seven” pictures and like what he sees. Seven looks good on him.I’m tired of looking back and wondering what on earth I was thinking when I dressed myself in fear. I would have looked much better dressed in faith.

Faith looks good on you.