Have you ever wondered why we humans think the stars are beautiful? We know they are just gases, atoms, heat and pressure millions of miles away, but why is it all so majestic to our senses?
Or what about the changing of the leaves during the fall season, why is that so stunning to us? A running horse in a big green field, galloping as it seems to shake the ground beneath your feet no matter how far you stand from it, why can’t we look away?
Or the sun setting each day in a different way, and the moon reflecting the sun’s rays to us on a cool, winter night? Or what about the children on the other side of the planet in war-torn countries, playing so joyfully with their soccer ball made from trash? How can children spill forth such light and joy despite the hard roads they’ve walked in their short lives? Births, graduations, weddings, and aged smiles on grandparents watching another generation just begin – why is it all so beautiful?
Women dressed elegantly and men noticing the women dressed elegantly; the strength of a good man given to his family who desperately needs it; the encouragement of a loving wife when her husband’s heart is in need of affirmation – why is it all of simply breathtaking?
God. Everything beautiful reflects God.
These are but a few of the things that make me laugh at evolution, at a clock maker god, at an unloving, distant god who cares nothing for his people. When I stop to take in the world around me, I mean really take it in through fresh eyes, a stilled heart, and a mind well rested and warm, I’m thrust towards the realization of a God so powerful, so loving, so amazing that my human mind can only take in glimpses of the glory which must belong to the Creator of this incredible universe.
Beauty destroys all the lies about God. Beauty cuts through my hurt, resentment, my doubt and my shame. Beauty is the mouth piece of God, a great witness, a clear spoken word from the one and only real Creator. It’s a message to the layman, the pastor, the learned, and the simple: “Behold the created world before you. I am God, I alone am He! I made this! This is but a poor reflection of me!” Who but a loving, good God could be the one responsible for everything that culminates to create this beautiful world?
Yes there’s pain, lost lives, war, epidemics, violence, and funerals we wish never had to happen. But the fact that beauty shines through all the pain, cuts it like a lighting bolt shattering the might oak – the fact that beauty still remains despite a fallen world is a testament to the love of our God.
From his heart and loving mind came sandy beaches which disappear into glassy oceans, that unique smell lingering around a new baby, and all those other things that cut us to the quick. When these things stir our hearts, it is God nudging us back to him.
Beauty is God trying to bring us back to him, to Life, to the source of the One moving the deep places within us. If his painted masterpiece can bring me to my knees in awe, how amazing must he be, the one all this beauty and creation is reflecting?
The awe of a mountain climbing high into a sky of billowy clouds, or the gentle touch of a cool summer breeze grazing your cheek as you walk outside, gazing at the planets above – all this majesty is but a small foreshadowing of the beauty and splendor to come when we can walk with Jesus as we were first created to do.
The beauty on this earth makes me want to live for the beauty in heaven, in the redeemed world to come. I can suffer through the pain for Jesus, fight the missions he has for me, walk the lonely road and take the blows of those who see no beauty if it means I can have more of the drink I’ve just begun to taste here, the drink of Living Water I long for more deeply with every sip of beauty I take.
Go find something beautiful today and see if God is not calling out to you.
“O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!” (Psalm 8:1)