Showing posts with label Beauty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beauty. Show all posts

Monday, November 3, 2014

Ugliness

I've just returned from a trip to our local library. In the entryway there is a place for displays. In the past I've stopped to look at old comic books or model trains or local memorabilia. Today, I stopped to view a collection of tools. These weren't garden tools or woodworking tools. This was about a different kind of tool. So there was a food guard which, according to the accompanying note, is 'ideal for use by a person with tremors or decreased coordination'. There was a weighted spoon which is designed for 'a person with limited hand control, Parkinson's disease or spasticity'. There was also a long-handled comb, a button hook (to button shirts and such) and other similar items. What all these tools had in common was that they were for people whose bodies were no longer working as they should.

I am so glad that there are those who invest the time to create aids like these tools. But at the same time I find myself struck by the ugliness of it all. This isn't the way that it's supposed to be. We're supposed to have bodies that are indestructible. They are supposed to work perfectly. But sin has changed all of that. 

I am eager for the day when there will no longer be any ugliness - only beauty. And that can only be when all sin and its ugly consequences are removed. 'Even so, come Lord Jesus.'

Sunday, December 30, 2012

The Beauty of the Lord

We're in the Psalms this morning, Psalm 27 to be exact. And, as is so often the case with the Psalms, David reveals something of his soul. He declares one of his great desires. Let me read it to you.

One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I 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.

David's heart is captured by the beauty of his God. All he wants to do is to sit and watch. David knows that if he could just watch his God in action, as He expresses his beauty in all that He does - David knows that he will be blown away. Awesome things happen when someone is able to do that: to gaze upon the beauty of God.