At a Glance
Join us for this fun and truly profound discussion on how discipleship leads to joy, beauty, and transformation. Jessica Shakir is a Kingdomizer who lives out her commission to make disciples, whether in a Hollywood studio, a start-up business, or at home. She is the perfect example of how God works through every situation and vocation to disciple the nations. We hope this episode encourages you to see every area of your life as an opportunity to make disciples.
In our discussion, Jessica shares how God used unexpected circumstances to help her discover the source of lasting joy in her life. Stepping away from her work as a Hollywood makeup artist, Jessica founded The Beautiful Mind Academy. This online community teaches women how to think biblically, learning about God as the source of beauty and helping them understand that they glorify him when they create things with beauty.
What You'll Hear
- Jessica lost her father at a young age, which influenced her faith by making her long for heaven.
- In 2019, she suffered from extreme pain following a serious neck injury. However, this resulted in a lot of growth in her relationship with the Lord and a dramatic shift in her life.
- After the injury, she left her career as a Hollywood makeup artist and became Founder of The Beautiful Mind Academy.
- Jessica learned as part of her trials to put her trust and joy in Jesus, even when things are hard.
- Jesus is joy, and true joy is found in him, not in our circumstances.
- People, circumstances, and the good things in life are all ultimately fleeting and can only provide temporary joy, but Jesus is an eternal rock who will always be the ultimate source of joy.
- Heaven is a place of eternal joy because we will be with Jesus. Even though suffering can feel terrible at any given moment, it is ultimately temporary and even insignificant when compared to the eternal joy of heaven (Romans 8:18).
- God is the ultimate creator, as shown in Genesis 1-2 when he creates everything.
- God is not just a creator, but an artist who made every single beautiful thing, and gave us the ability to make art ourselves.
- God rejoices in beauty and deliberately made the universe beautiful.
- God is the source of all beauty, and all beauty ultimately points back to and glorifies him.
- Today, we tend to pit internal beauty against external beauty, and value external beauty above internal beauty.
- We need to appreciate and rejoice in both, but ultimately look to internal beauty as the more important of the two, because that is the beauty that God ultimately uses to judge people.
- Beauty captures attention and draws it to something.
- Beauty can either be used to point to ourselves or point to God.
- Beauty is objective and based in God, even though some people might prefer certain kinds of beauty over others.
- Our bodies are gifts from God that we should steward well, and we should rejoice in the beauty of the body as a way to glorify God.
- God is the ultimate source of beauty, and we are made in his image, so all of us have an inner beauty.
- When we walk in God and wholeness instead of the brokenness of the world, we become more whole and beautiful.
- The Church tends not to focus on beauty in favor of evangelism or church-growing, and while those are certainly important, part of humanity’s purpose is to make beautiful things and to rejoice in the beauty we see around us.
Using the link above, you can read the transcript, listen along, and adjust the speed of the podcast while you listen.
Joy isn’t a feeling, it’s a person, and that person is Jesus.
-Jessica Shakir (21:52)
Go Deeper
The Beautiful Mind Academy
Imagine being so secure in your identity, so certain of your calling + so in love with Jesus that you start living wildly FREE, feeling authentically beautiful, and LOVING who you are + whose you are, in this very moment.
This program has been designed to help you get the Truth of God’s Word from head to heart, so you can start living aligned, authentic, and FULLY ALIVE!!
The goal isn’t to become like me, or like her, but to become more like Jesus and to become even more authentically YOU! The beautiful YOU God delights in!
Together we apply biblical truth, positive psychology, neuroscience, and insights from my 22 years of studying BEAUTY to our lives. This program is filled with honest conversations + thoughtful questions.
Let’s partner with God as we apply His transformational power to these areas of our lives…
Our Beauty, Mind, Talent, Voice, Waiting, Pain, Body, Relationships, Faith, Life, Appearance, and it culminates with the spiritual discipline of Celebration!
A Call For Balladeers
Through a biblical lens, Darrow Miller examines what it means to be a Christian artist and the role of beauty in the world. As the First Artist, God created the universe to be beautiful, and set a precedent for all mankind: to create art, not for religious obligation, but simply for the sake of beauty itself.
With scrutiny and honesty, A Call for Balladeers takes a hard look at the faulty perspective toward art and beauty held by many Christians today and uses the Bible to make a case for why the Church should be concerned with the arts. Miller provides a hopeful, liberating outlook for Christians who find themselves caught in a dilemma between their artistic endeavors and their desire to minister to their community.
There is no divide between art, beauty, and the Christian faith. God uses the arts and artists to advance His kingdom of truth, goodness, and beauty on earth as it is in heaven. A Call for Balladeers will help Christians think biblically about art, teach them about historical and modern-day balladeers, and encourage artists to use their God-given talents to minister prophetically, bringing transformation to their communities and nations.
Jessica Shakir’s Instagram
You Can’t Experience Beauty Without God: with Jenny Jee-El Park
Quotes
And I said, “Jesus, how do I face something that I’ve known all my life may be a possibility and now it’s here. I don’t want to do it. But if you’re calling me to do it, how do I face it? How do I get the courage to move forward?” And I didn’t even realize the picture I was painting. And I felt Jesus right in front of me saying, “Jess, I really, really know how that feels.” And I thought, wow, for the joy set before you, Jesus, you endured the cross. And so for the joy set before me, I will endure my cross and this wilderness and it’ll be joy that’ll be my weapon that will get me through. -Jessica Shakir (17:53)
In my mind, because of my story, my joy is synonymous with tenacity for the journey, joy is going to get me through whatever I’m going through. Joy is my weapon. -Jessica Shakir (18:50)
Joy isn’t a feeling, it’s a person, and that person is Jesus. -Jessica Shakir (21:52)
And so for me, beauty and a word is Jesus. He is beauty itself, … the living God is beautiful. And so everything he does is how his glory extends. -Jessica Shakir (35:27)
My question for me as I moved through her life now is what I find beautiful. Is that also beautiful to God? Because if not, I want to shift my perspective, I want to come into alignment with what the truth is. Is this beautiful to God? -Jessica Shakir (36:08)
Beauty isn’t anything to be applied, beauty is to be unveiled. -Jessica Shakir (57:41)
I’m so honored and grateful to have been on your podcast… a podcast that has helped me grow and transform even more into the likeness of Christ! What a beautiful work y’all are doing!! THANK YOU for having me. I absolutely LOVED our conversation! I didn’t want it to end.
“What is your theology of Beauty?” I loved when Dwight asked this simple yet profound question. It’s a question I love. It’s a question I want to invite YOU to answer, too!
It’s with a humble heart that I share this podcast interview, because when we’re faced with our own limitations and imperfections we have two choices: We let that reality keep us insecure or keep us HUMBLE. I chose the latter.
Humility: A place of total dependence on God! Our attention is on HIM + His Glory!
My desire is for all Glory to be pointed back to the origin of Glory and Beauty itself: God. It’s my hope that while listening, you think of even more questions to ask God, to ask yourself, to ask each other.
It’s my mission to help women develop a deeper sense of critical thinking and not a critical spirit, so that we may align our thinking with God’s and step into greater courage as we show up boldly in the world!
THANK YOU DNA + IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES!!!!! I’m cheering you on!!
Jessica, It was our great privilege to meet you and have you join us. May God continue to enrich your life in every way as you work to bless others.
As Bach used to say, “Soli Deo Gloria.”
We are excited to have you join us again sometime.