Once, while visiting in a hospital ward, I met a woman who had enjoyed an Atlantic ocean-crossing aboard the Queen Mary. She and her sister had enjoyed the luxurious surroundings and she shared quite a bit about that voyage. I was fascinated to hear firsthand about this ship that was an important piece of history from someone who had actually sailed aboard her.

Built in Scotland in 1930, she was christened in 1931 by Queen Mary herself, who delighted the public by giving the ship her name. The ship, larger than the Titanic, was 1,019 feet long, had 12 decks and carried 1,957 passengers with a crew of 1,174. She was converted into a troop carrier during WWII and transported more than 800,000 soldiers.

I had the privilege of exploring her decks twice while she was docked at Long Beach, California as a kind of floating museum. One fact I remember well from a tour I took had to do with her beautiful smokestacks. When the ship was sold in 1967, the famous Cunard red funnels were removed to be replaced. As the stacks were lowered onto the docks, they collapsed. The stacks had been painted and repainted so many times that the paint was all that was left of the original funnels. Over 1,000 voyages and the salt water had rusted the insides until no metal remained. They looked great on the outside but there was nothing on the inside but rust and rot.

In Christian life, it’s easy to be “royalty on the outside” while remaining inwardly unchanged. To quote one of my Scottish grandmother’s expressions, we’re pretty good at “putting on the dog” or dressing up like something we’re not. It’s easy to paste on a smile and adopt an attitude that makes people around us feel like we have it all together while on the inside there is turmoil or sin eating away at us. Coming to Jesus, fully, unconditionally, can restore God’s original intention for us. Submitting to Him and allowing Jesus to fill every place in our lives not only cleanses us of sin but makes us fully useful as servants of God.

What the outside looks like isn’t nearly as important as what is on the inside. We pray that God will fully transform us from rust and rot to something beautiful.

“What counts is whether we have been transformed into a new creation.” Galatians 6:15b NLT