Friends, we live in a place, and a time, and a reality in which beauty is always and everywhere present with us, and even though I have been writing about many of the troubling things happening in our world, I want to pause today to take notice of some of the beauty we’ve been given.
My Dad used to like to tell everyone about the first time I looked up and saw the awesome array of heavenly lights arrayed above me in stunning beauty and splendor. I was a toddler in his arms at that moment, and when I looked up, he said that awe was on my face, and I said “Whole buncha ‘tars.” with a quiver. Years later on a vacation in Hawaii, I went for a stroll under the stars with my wife, and wow! You have no idea how many stars are actually up there, or how movingly beautiful they are when unpolluted by ambient light.
Consider this by Dr. Merritt
On a mission trip in Zambia, I was taking a boat up the Zambezi River to speak to pastors who were coming from many miles around. After a four-hour ride, we were deep into the African jungle. That first night we were sleeping in a tent when I woke up. I slipped outside, and what I saw was breathtaking. I had never seen so many stars in my life! It was as though they had become rabbits and multiplied while I slept! But the reason I could see so many stars was that we weren’t around any electric lights or pollution. We just had a clear, clean sky.
Astronomers tell us only a little over 9,000 stars are visible to the naked eye, but that’s only about one to the hundredth quintillionth of stars out there. A quintillion is a one followed by 20 zeroes. They also estimate the number of stars in the universe is about three septillion. That’s a three with 24 zeroes after it. That number is constantly expanding. And every single second those three septillion stars put out roughly the same amount of energy as a trillion atom bombs. We now see infrared images of galaxies we didn’t even know existed, estimated at about 12 million light-years away.1
On another occasion, I was so overwhelmed by the beauty and majesty of the Sierra Nevada mountaintops viewed from my vantagepoint above many of them, that I wept. Tears of awe and wonder. I was not yet a believer, but was so moved, that I said out loud, “There has to be a god!” It was simply incomprehensible that such beauty could have come about by random chance, or that I or anyone could behold it and be so profoundly moved by it. The impression of design was overwhelming.
So life is beautiful if you get out and see it. But it doesn’t end with just the visual. What about music? Have you ever heard music so beautiful that you were moved not by the lyrics, but by the sheer melodic and harmonic beauty of it? I have, on many occasions. In fact, music is my worship language. I feel closer to God when I hear or sing along with beautiful music than with words alone, whether read or spoken.
But even the sounds of nature can be beautiful: birds chirping, a gentle stream flowing, the sound of a warm breeze, even a bumblebee’s or hummingbird’s wings are beautiful.
But the thing about beauty that’s so amazing to me is that we humans have the capacity to experience it and be moved by it. Why is that? Would something be beautiful if there was no one there to experience it?
My answer is no. God created beauty in order to display his own glory. Scripture tells us so. But to whom was he displaying His glory? Would it be beautiful without people to behold it?
Here’s one more aspect of beauty to recon with. It’s the beauty encountered when discovering a thing that’s profoundly true. It feels beautiful, even though it didn’t touch any of the five physical senses. Mathematics, for example.
Mathematical beauty
Mathematical beauty is the aesthetic pleasure typically derived from the abstractness, purity, simplicity, depth or orderliness of mathematics. Mathematicians often express this pleasure by describing mathematics as beautiful. They might also describe mathematics as an art form or, at a minimum, as a creative activity. Wikipedia
Imagine how scientists must have felt when they proved the existence of the so-called Fibonacci sequence: design in nature, proven by mathematics. What I mean by that is that they discovered a pattern that appears in nature, from the extremely small
to the unimaginably large,
and then discovered that it could be produced by using a mathematical sequence. Here’s a primer, in case you’re unfamiliar with it. But also do a search (preferably not Google) for it and click on images. If you’ve never done it, you’ll be blown away.
Of course there are also fractals, which are mathematically derived as well. According to brilliant.org,
…a fractal, by definition, is a curve or geometric figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole.
Look at the cauliflower pictures on this page - https://brilliant.org/wiki/fractals/ and here’s a very cool way to interact with a fractal design.
Over and over again in the world, indeed in the universe, we find that the appearance of design is overwhelming. And when we discover the truth that there is a designer, and that that discovery leads to one amazing discovery about this designer after another, and that each new discovery leads to another, so that the very idea of the infinite and awesome nature of the unseen creator is in itself beautiful…
That’s beauty in truth.
Writers, especially poets, try to stir our awareness of beauty with their writing. Britanica.com defines poetry as
Literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound, and rhythm.
So poets have been trying to get us to use our minds to experience beauty for centuries. And very often, poetry points us to our creator by speaking to our souls.
So program in some time in your life to connect your own soul with whatever kind of beauty you can. You will find that even in the midst of incredible trials and troubles and the wickedness of ungodly men, you can still draw closer to your creator, and be changed, renewed, encouraged, and filled with a sense that
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; ...
So we are living in times of great shaking. But there’s a reason for it. Our way to endure it is to trust God that He will one day render justice to the wicked and unrepentant, and grace and mercy to those who put their trust in Him.
Quote from Dr. James Merritt of Life Today