Enjoying Beauty
Bible in a Year: 1 Kings 1–2; Luke 19:28–48
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Ecclesiastes 3:11
The painting caught my eye like a beacon. Displayed along a long hallway in a big city hospital, its deep pastel hues and Navajo Native American figures were so arresting I stopped to marvel and stare. “Look at that,” I said to my husband, Dan.
He was walking ahead but I hesitated, bypassing other paintings on the wall to gaze only at that one. “Beautiful,” I whispered.
Many things in life are beautiful indeed. Master paintings. Scenic vistas. Inspired crafts. But so is a child’s smile. A friend’s hello. A robin’s blue egg. A seashell’s strong ridges. To relieve the burdens life can bring, “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). In such beauty, Bible scholars explain, we get a glimpse of the perfection of God’s creation—including the glory of His perfect rule to come.
We can only imagine such perfection, so God grants us a foretaste through life’s beauty. In this way, God “has also set eternity in the human heart” (v. 11). Some days life looks drab and futile. But God mercifully provides moments of beauty to ponder.
The artist of the painting I admired, Gerard Curtis Delano, understood that. “God [gave] me a talent to create beauty,” he once said, “and this is what He wanted me to do.”
Seeing such beauty, how can we respond? We can thank God for eternity to come while pausing to enjoy the glory we already see.
Today's Reflection
How do you respond to the beauty God has placed in this world? How does beauty reflect Him?
