So you think you’re a ten but you’re actually a six

Posted by admin on Feb 17, 2009 in Issues & Ideas | 0 comments

Are you looking for a calm to your date-night twitch? Do you inexplicably spout uncouthness around girls?

You may have an ancient disease the Greeks called hubris. The sheer repetition of this story in history is evidence enough that it has the ring and sting of truth.

The story reads much like Ovid’s Pygmalion. A pompous man, named Pygmalion, considers all the dames of his acquaintance inadequate for his god-like appearance and unprecedented spiritual character, so he carves for himself a pop-culture Madonna out of ivory. In his abounding joy he sets her in the middle in the city. He kisses, caresses and confesses his undying love to her. She is so beautiful that he asks Venus, the goddess of love, to give her life. Venus grants his request and his ivory lady comes to life.

This myth is a great picture of how a distorted perception of oneself can lead to pride and idolatry.
Stereotypically, men, like Pygmalion, tend to exaggerate their good looks and their ability to attract women.

Sometimes this is a result from possessing a defective mirror. Remember the magical mirror on the wall that Snow White’s wicked queen looked into?

She would ask, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”

The mirror, to the queen’s dismay, eventually told the truth – it confessed Snow White was fairer than her.

Sadly, sometimes guys don’t have close enough friends to function as their “mirror”; thus, no one tells them the truth. As a result, guys often can’t find girls that will measure up to their high standards. Like Arragon in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, they think themselves deserving of a queen.

In Romans 12:3 the apostle Paul says, “For the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith God has assigned.”

This principle is transferable to any aspect of our lives, including our appearance. If – by God’s grace – we are able to see ourselves truly, inner hubris dies and we become more Christ-conscious and less self-conscious. The date-night twitches flee and uncouthness turns suavé.

There is no need to carve any “American idols” to erect in the square, or to pray to Jesus for ivory figurines; after all, he has promised not to give us stones but something much better than we can imagine.