On our recent vacation, I spent some time getting up in the morning to watch the sun rise. The rays of light were breaking through the clouds in a spectacular display of glory. As I watched the day brake, I tried to capture the moment in photos. Yet the pictures couldn’t do justice to the extravagant beauty I was witnessing.
Defining beauty is so difficult. People have tried to describe it as that which is lovely, draws your attention and gives pleasure, portrays a sense of ultimate reality, or creates a happiness in the mind. It includes aspects like order, symmetry, simplicity, harmony, and delight. It is rooted in what is good and true and just. Beauty is seen in the natural order, heard in songs and voices, seen in art, valued in treasure.
Beauty matters. It has a way of capturing the mind and the imagination. It creates a sense of pleasure. And it moves the soul.
Every generation has one question it wants to have answered to make belief in God possible. In 2021 at the National Association of Evangelicals, James Choung reflected on these questions for different generations. Baby Boomers (1946-1965) came out of a time of upheaval after WW2 and the rise of civil rights, and so they long to know what is true. GenX (1966-1979) are suspicious of hypocrisy and want to know what is real. Millennials (1980-1995) experienced a time where corporate greed was seen as a danger and so they desire to know what is good. But the generation that has grown up with the iPhone and all things easily accessible (what some have called GenZ or iGen) want to know what is beautiful.
We are all confronted with the ugliness of this world. But we long to know that there is something that is beautiful. What makes one book, movie, or song stand out is that there is something that pleases us in a way that others do not.
For Christians, we should reflect on what is truly beautiful. Part of our witness to this world must reflect the beauty of our faith. God is beautiful. He makes all things beautiful in his time. He has made the church to display his beauty. And truth is not mere logic to the mind but beauty to the soul.
“One thing I have asked of the Lord,” David said. What did he want to seek after? “that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Ps. 27:4). David didn’t want a glimpse of beauty. He wanted to gaze, stare, let the beauty of the Lord be his preoccupation.
We need beauty to capture us again. We need to see something that will create wonder, adoration, and satisfy us. So, let’s pray that the beauty of our God would awaken us with a fresh sense of awe to who He is and all that he has done and made.
Longing to be captivated,
~Andrew