Photo by David Wirzba on Unsplash

The beauty of the natural world screams, ‘God is, and He loves you!’  Beauty extends from the edge of the universe to the microcosmos!  It is everywhere, because God is everywhere.

It is an attribute of God Himself.  As it says in Romans 1:20, ‘His invisible attributes are clearly seen in the things He has made.’

 God is beautiful!  ‘One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.’ Psalm 27:4

Why is it that people typically want to live with a view of the mountains or on a lake, a river, the ocean?  Why is this always the most expensive property?  Why do we often go to so much trouble to travel to the most beautiful places?  Is it because we want to be near God whose attributes are clearly seen in the things He has made?  Whether we live near or travel to these places, it is His attributes we see and feel.  We see His beauty, feel His peace and are even filled with joy!  Could it be because, as King Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 3:11, ‘He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the human heart.’  I believe that this is what we all hunger for because we are designed with ‘a God shaped hole in our soul’ (He has set eternity in our hearts) that only God can fill.  As the theologian Pascal said in the 1600’s, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be filled by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made know through Jesus Christ.”  Whether we know it or not, we hunger for Him.

I once read a true story about a young man who went to visit his dying friend.  

‘I found my friend aware of the beauty of the night.  From his window he could see the glamour, the light flooding the tide and running white lances through the trees.  As I sat beside him, a mockingbird began to sing in the moonlight. 

Long afterward my friend said to me, “I thought that night would be my last, but from the time the bird song came through the window, I knew I would get well.” On the table by his bed had been all the necessities for a sick man; he had small comfort from them.  Yet the moonlight, and the hale fragrances, and the wild song of the bird-these brought solace.’  He said, “I don’t talk much about such things, but I felt all that beauty and peace was really the love of God.”

Condensed from “Peace in the Heart” by Archibald Rutledge.

Before I even knew Him, God delivered me from certain death on my Vespa motor scooter.  You can read all about it in my POST entitled, ‘What a Crock!’.  Needless to say, this miracle of protection got my attention!  But it was in the beauty of the natural world that I heard Him calling me.     

In the late 60’s, I borrowed my friends Nikon camera.  It had a Micro-NIKKOR, or close up lens.  I decided to walk around the Seward Park Peninsula near my home in Seattle every day for a week to observe and photograph SPRING!

What I saw through my camera lens filled me with joy and a certain knowing in my heart that not only did God exist, (He’d ‘written eternity on my heart’), but He must love me very much to create such beauty.  I met Him shortly thereafter!!!

Next time you sit in your lawn chair and look at the ocean, hike up a mountain trail, see a sunset, or smell a rose and feel a sense of awe, say out loud, “Jesus is that you?”  He will answer you, because, YES, it is Him!

We were having coffee on the deck of my friend’s house. It was fall and the leaves on his trees were decorated in a myriad of beautiful colors. One leaf fell to the table right in front of me and I was inspired to write this poem:

THE GIFT!

It came from above
To the table
For me
This leaf landscape of all He is
Speaking without words
His love
His care
His beauty and tenderness
For all who would hear.

Do yourself a whopper of a favor and click on the following link to view my Pinterest board I call, ‘Beauty, God’s Calling Card!’

https://www.pinterest.com/sbranston5619/beauty-gods-calling-card/_tools/organize/?organization_feed=False