Have you ever notice that a large portion of man’s designed beauty, attempts at art, and experiences that excite happen in the darkness or in artificial light? Things must be manipulated and controlled. Examples include fashion catwalks, studio pictures, many traditional art galleries, nightclubs, and a large number of restaurants. Where man’s creative abilities excel, I can think of ways that people find it “exciting” to see and experience the event at night. All the traditional sports now have a night-time experience option. Stock car racing, baseball, and American football are easy examples. Snow sports such as snowboarding is a more recent one.
God has created works on display all around us waiting to be experienced. Yesterday I found myself lying back and gazing up into the warm summer like sky watching the cloud patterns. Memories and feelings of California when I was eight, India when I was thirteen, Singapore at sixteen, and Oregon at twenty all blended together in an amazing mosaic of beauty and awe that was both inspiring and humbling at the same time! Riding through the English countryside with the beauty and nature’s natural sounds was in sharp contract to the living “hell” that has been my reality of the recent past. Couple this with the experience of gazing into the eyes of a child who carries hope and I wonder if I understand real beauty.
John was in vision and saw so many thanks that defied description. Awesome, incredible, beautiful, terrifying, and mysterious had become the norm! Yet everything that he has seen did now prepare him for what would happen when things moved to the next level.
“I saw—it took my breath away!—the Lamb standing on Mount Zion.” (Revelation 14.1)
The beauty of a sunset is the lead-in for the beauty we can find in God. The eyes of hope are indicators of the hope we can find in God. The awe and mystery of a child’s unconditional love model God’s view of you and me.
Take a fresh look. Your life depends on what you see.
