Gilding The Lily

Gilding the lily is a common phrase borrowed from Shakespeare that means to add unnecessary embellishment to something that is already beautiful. The Savior once talked about lilies. "And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" (Matthew 6:28-30). As beautiful as a lily is, God made each of His children to be far, far more beautiful. The sad thing is that our beauty is often hidden from our own eyes. Many of us secretly fear that we were not created to be beautiful creatures, or, at least, we were not created to be beautiful enough, and certainly we were not created to be as beautiful as those around us. We scramble for wealth and popularity and prestige and status to try to make ourselves beautiful enough for our own impossibly high standards. Such efforts are as pointless and ineffectual as gilding the lily. Jesus said that even Solomon, covered in all of his gold and finery could not be more beautiful than a humble lily. This is not to say that Solomon himself was not beautiful, but that all of his wealthy possessions could not add to his innate beauty. So it is with us. God is perfect. He is a perfect creator. He created us to be beautiful in a way that no man-made way possibly could. We should not be in such a rush to cover ourselves in gold and thus cover up the beauty that our Father created. If we were to take a field of lilies and coat them all in gold, well, first of all, it would look incredibly tacky. But worse than that, the unique and individual beauty of each lily would be lost in a sparkling sea of sameness. The subtle way a petal's color bleeds from deep purple to mauve to lavender, the delightful contrast of yellow stamen against white petals and green stems, the delicate fragrance - all of this would be lost under a cold, odorless, homogenous sheen of gold. God placed us on the earth not so that we might eventually be dipped in gold but so that we can delight the world with a beauty that is uniquely our own. I hope we can all pray to our Heavenly Father to open our eyes to our own beauty and in so doing let go of our insecure quest to needlessly gild the lily.