Beauty,Grace and Success

UV 1452/10,000 Beauty, Grace and Success
And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

Psalm 90 v 17

Some translations put the first part of this uni-verse as “May the favour of the Lord rest upon us…” Indeed, grace or the favour of the Lord is truly beautiful. It beatifies us. It beautifies us. Scripture says that when we find favour in the eyes of the Lord, His beautiful face shines on us, our whole being and its several parts. We begin to see with the eyes of God, to smell with the nostrils of the Lord, to think with the mind of Christ, to feel with the heart of God, to do with the hands of the Lord. We operate with the might of the grace of God and the grace of the might of God.


The word “establish” implies to enable to succeed, to prosper or advance. The Lord God is the first cause, the continuing cause and the last cause of our success in all that we do. He is the first and the last. He causes the work of our hands to endure, to last beyond their natural longevity. Unlike the constant refrain of the negative experimenter King Solomon who experimented with all that does not last, does not have the favour of God, with wealth, wine, women and worldly wisdom and found that it is all in vain- a mere chasing of the wind, we can say, “ It is gain, it is all gain in the Lord.”

Our focus is not the work of our hands or the gain we get thereby but the favour or grace of the Lord. He will cause our work to succeed, the fruits to last, the legacy to outlast our lives.
Our motive is not to establish our own claims to greatness but to establish the greatness or glory of the Lord. Its practical implication is that we should seek to establish the fact of the beauty, splendour and greatness of the Lord in our practical lives, our homes, our workplaces, our careers and our professions. The Lord will marshal our natural strengths and grant us spiritual strength to overcome our inherent weaknesses and limitations. The “hamartia” or the falling short of our objectives, goals, targets both in a quantitative and a qualitative measure is replaced by the phenomenon of abundance or “hyperbole” or doing better than intended or aimed for in all domains or areas of life. We live and work realizing that except the Lord build our lives, we labour in vain. When the Lord builds our lives, He does it beautifully and we labour for gain- gain that neither moth, nor rust nor thief can rob. In other words, neither natural forces and factors of decay nor human wiles or guile can stop us from advancing, progressing, building, succeeding and finishing.

Prateep V Philip