Appreciating the Stunning Beauty of Creation

Tourists ride "The Maid of the Mist" to see
Niagara Falls as closely as possible.

With all the ugliness and evil we see in the world, sometimes it’s easy to forget how much beauty surrounds us. Caught up in negativity, we fail to “stop and smell the roses,” as the time-honored admonition tells us to do. When was the last time you made a point of admiring and enjoying beauty in any of its many forms? 

Art – whether it’s considered beautiful or not – is largely determined by who’s looking at it. We can stare at a painting, no matter if it’s been created with oil paint, watercolors or some other medium, and some of us will marvel at the artist’s skill and creativity; others will shrug or even sneer, wondering what the artist could have been thinking. 

 

We can have similar reactions to sculptures. Most folks will agree that two of Michelangelo’s best known creations, “David” and “Pieta,” are true works of art. However, when we see sculptures consisting of twisted metal or seemingly random plastic, many of us aren’t so convinced. Beauty truly is in the eyes of the beholder.

 

The same applies to music, literature, theatrical films, and many other art forms. I’ve heard many pieces of music, both vocal and instrumental, that thrilled me to my core while others, highly regarded by other people, elicit a mere “Meh” from me. One person’s wonderful melody is another’s cacophony.

 

If we were to ask each other what books and films made the strongest impressions on us, we’d probably offer widely differing opinions. But that’s one of the great things about life. We’re all unique, not only in physical appearance and abilities, but also in our interests and preferences.

 

Many natural wonders, however, tend to evoke more commonly shared responses. I’ve visited the Grand Canyon twice, and both times found myself slack-jawed and speechless. I doubt there’s anyone who has seen it in person that wasn’t awestruck to some degree. I never tire of observing glorious sunrises and sunsets, especially while at the beach. My cameras might tire of taking photos of those sights, but I don’t.

 

Recently, my wife and I joined a bus tour to Niagara Falls, another impressive natural wonder. Being told about more than 3,000 tons of water crashing over the Falls every second is nothing compared to seeing it happening firsthand. Put in other terms, this is 75,750 gallons of water per second over the American and Bridal Veil Falls, and 681,750 gallons over the Horseshoe Falls. (No, the thought of taking the plunge in a barrel never crossed my mind.)

 

The best thing about appreciating the wonders of nature, whether it’s a perfectly formed flower or the splendor of countless stars viewed from a site far from the glare of city lights, is knowing who created them. Psalm 8:1-3 declares, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set Your glory above the heavens…Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place.”

 

Many scientists would respond that all we see on the earth, under the earth and far above the earth isn’t the work of God, but the results of time and random chance. Increasingly, however, although not widely reported, credible and credentialed scientists are challenging the assumptions that support the denial of intelligent design or creation, while also casting doubt on similar presuppositions used to justify much evolutionary thinking. This is why passages like those in Psalm 8, along with the Creation account in the opening chapters of Genesis, are all the more astounding.

 

For instance, one wouldn’t look at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Great Wall of China, or the Great Pyramids of Egypt and conclude, “What a marvel of time and random chance!” We know without questioning that they all were conceived, designed and built by creative, industrious minds. How much more the unfathomable wonders of nature that were fine-tuned so exquisitely by our Creator God?

 

There is one other example from creation I haven’t mentioned that’s even more wondrous: Human beings. After writing, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place,” the psalmist continued with awe, “what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of Your hands; You put everything under his feet” (Psalm 8:3-6). Which prompts the writer in verse 9 to repeat, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!”

 

When we decide to slow down long enough to appreciate all the beauty that surrounds us, not to mention the incredible complexity with which each one of us is made and can exist, I wonder how a fair-minded person cannot be stirred and moved to affirm, “O Lord…how majestic is Your name in all the earth”?

Discovering God in Times of Testing

Can you imagine what the marble must have looked like
before Michelangelo began carving his "Pieta"?

There’s an adage we sometimes hear that we can learn more from failure than we do from success. We could offer a variety of possible reasons for this, but my experience and that of many people I know is that, whether we like it or not, it’s true.

Success might be the result of vision, hard work and determination. But it might also be a product of being in the right place at the right time, or happenstance. Causes for failure, however, are usually easier to identify: Poor judgment; bad planning; not working hard enough; unwillingness to persevere, quitting too soon; downright sinful wrongdoing. Those are just some of possible contributors to failure.

 

But there’s another one we don’t often consider: God might be allowing adversity in our lives because He has some lessons we need to learn. The Bible calls it “testing,” “tribulations” or “trials.” 

 

One of the earliest references in the Scriptures is Deuteronomy, after God had given to Moses His commandments and instructions for the people of Israel. Referring to the nomadic journey the Lord had taken them on after their escape from slavery in Egypt, Moses said, “Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands” (Deuteronomy 8:2).

 

If ever there were a stiff-necked people, it was the Israelites whom God had specifically and specially chosen to be His own people. He could have chosen many other people groups, but the people of Israel were those He ordained to be His for eternity. During their 40-year wanderings, they had rebelled against Him on numerous occasions. So, He kept them in the wilderness for four decades, not only to test what was in their hearts but also to shape their character for the future He had for them.

 

A number of New Testament passages speak to this as well. In James 1:3-4, the apostle exhorts his readers, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” Verses later James adds, “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him” (James 1:12).

 

There’s a similar statement in the short book of 1 Peter. After opening his letter to readers he calls “God’s elect, strangers in the world…,” Peter encourages, “In this you greatly rejoice, though for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – or greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus is revealed” (1 Peter 1:1,7).

 

We could cite many other passages, but it’s clear that what we often regard as failure, or mistakenly believe to be the result of sinful disobedience, might actually part of the refining process God uses to mold and shape us into the people He desires for us to be.

 

I can think of many times of testing in my life, times when I often wondered, ‘What did I do wrong?’ ‘Why is this happening?’ The benefits of the testing began when I shifted my questioning to ask, ‘What are you trying to teach me, Lord?’ 

 

There was the time when after leaving the newspaper business to join the staff of a Christian ministry, our house in our former city sat on the market for an entire year. All the while we struggled to meet mortgage payments on that house and the house we had bought, along with a bridge loan to buy the purchase of the new house in the interim. 

 

During that time, I dug deeply and diligently into the Scriptures, seeking to learn that “nugget” God was trying to teach me. I learned many things over that period, but the most important was this: The Lord telling me, “I am God, Bob, and you’re not!” He was eagerly working to break down my self-sufficiency and learn to trust Him, no matter the circumstances.

 

Since then, I and my family have dealt with testing in many forms. We felt fear at times, as well as anger, frustration, you name it. But God knew exactly what He was doing. And we’ve learned much as we’ve gone through the process.

 

Some sculptors, they say, work on a block of granite or marble simply chipping away at everything that does not look like the image they have formed in their mind’s eye. I imagine God doing the same with us, knowing how broken we all are, and slowly chipping away at our flaws, determined to transform us into the image of His Son. 

As 1 John 3:2 says, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” Wow! If that’s the outcome of God’s faithful and loving testing in our lives, I’m all for it. How about you? 

Acting Like a Masterpiece

Michelangelo's "Pieta" at St. Peter's Cathedral in the Vatican.

When you hear the word “masterpiece,” what comes to mind? You might think about a Leonardo da Vinci work, such as the “Mona Lisa” or “The Last Supper.” Or you might consider creations from many other celebrated “old masters” like Renoir, Monet, van Gogh, or even “Whistler’s Mother” by James McNeill Whistler. There are too many to mention.

If your preference is sculpture, the term masterpiece might conjure images of the “Venus de Milo,” or Michelangelo’s “David.” Last year in Rome, we viewed firsthand Michelangelo’s famed sculpture, “Pieta,” along with glorious paintings and tapestries throughout the Vatican, especially in the Sistine Chapel.

Towering rocks jutting up at
Italy's island of Capri.

For me, some of the greatest masterpieces are what we can observe in nature: a sparkling sunrise; an oceanside view of a fiery sunset; the wondrous expanse of the Grand Canyon; amazing mountain peaks and rock formations; beautiful flowers in full bloom at springtime; towering redwoods and sequoias at our national parks.

However, when the Bible talks about masterpieces, it often refers to you and me. Several translations of Ephesians 2:10 tell us, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” The New International Version translates it, “we are God’s handiwork….” But in the New Living Translation we’re told, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

You and me – God’s masterpiece. Wow! At least one other translation uses that term, while another version states we are “God’s handiwork.” The Greek word used is poiema, from which we get the word, “poem.” In the Lord’s sight, we each are like a epic poem. Meditate on that for a moment.

For many of us, an initial reaction to that thought might be, “No way! Do you have any idea what a mess I am? I’m anything but a masterpiece!” We might all feel that way at times, but that’s what God calls us in the Scriptures. In fact, earlier in the same New Testament book we’re told, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight” (Ephesians 1:4). Putting these passages together, it says we’re God’s masterpieces, holy and blameless in His sight. Can I say it again? Wow!

If we’re honest, that doesn’t sound true as we consider our many human flaws. But it all comes down to who we’re going to believe – God, or fragile, fickle feelings?

It’s not as if the Lord is ignoring our sins and shortcomings. It’s that He’s expert at taking broken people and not just restoring us, but literally recreating us spiritually. One of my favorite verses is 2 Corinthians 5:17 which declares, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away; behold, the new has come!”

Another passage says, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). If that’s true, if the Spirit of Jesus lives in each of us who has been born again into a new life spiritually, we indeed are masterpieces, works of art that God is still in the process of finishing.

But what if it doesn’t seem that’s true – as is sometimes the case for me? The key is not to trust feelings, which can mislead, even deceive. Our trust must be in God and His view of us. As Romans 12:2 instructs, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind….” Which includes rejecting our limited perspectives and accepting His promises and assurances. 

God has declared us to be His masterpieces. So we should start acting like masterpieces, recognizing we are not our own, but totally submitted to the will and purposes of the Master. After all, as Psalm 139:14 declares, we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” He wants us to faithfully pursue Him and discover what He has created us to be.

‘Pasta-Tense’ Perspectives on Italy

The Roman Colosseum, a vast amphitheater of historic lore,
remains a visual wonder to this day.

Do you have any idea how much old stuff they have in Italy?

In the United States, a building 25 years or older becomes a prime candidate for being razed, to be replaced by something shinier, sleeker and, well, newer. Not in Italy, or much of Europe for that matter, as I had the pleasant opportunity to observe. One reason for my recent blog “sabbatical” was that my wife and I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join a group tour of Italy. As a result, I can now attest there’s a lot of old stuff there – REALLY old stuff.

Unlike in the USA, where we’re quick to demolish domed stadiums, retail stores, hotels and all sorts of other structures the moment they start to exhibit the first signs of age, things in “the old country” were built to last. Perhaps, even as they were being constructed, architects and builders were considering how these grand facilities would present themselves years later in what we could term, the “pasta tense.”

Take the Roman Colosseum, for example. The revered amphitheater was built in the first century A.D. Even though it has taken a beating over the years, it remains a stately icon of history. No one’s booking the Colosseum for sporting events these days, but neither is anyone in Rome contemplating tearing it down and replacing it with a shopping mall or condominiums.

Artwork that defies description can be
seen everywhere in the Vatican.

The Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, known best for Michelangelo’s wondrous ceiling paintings, is young by comparison, dating back only to the 15^thcentury. But more than 600 years later, it still mesmerizes many thousands of visitors daily, not only for its artistic beauty but also for the compelling spiritual messages captured by each work of art. The imagery – and truths – throughout the Vatican have endured the passing of time.

This “built to last” philosophy was evident everywhere we went, whether it was ancient Assisi, birthplace of St. Francis; the ruins of Pompeii, reminders of the once-prospering Roman city buried by the 79 A.D. eruption of Vesuvius; the hillside city of Montefiascone, or picturesque seaside communities like Positano and Sorrento.

Rock formations off coastal communities
like Capri command a sense of awe.

The imposing “faraglioni” rock formations off the island of Capri, which have adorned travelogues as well as theatrical films set in that area, leave their own lasting impressions – not of human imagination and construction, but of natural wonder.

During our 12-day travels across what the natives know as Italia, I found much to take note of and ponder. But the enduring qualities of what we saw firsthand ranked right at the top of the list.

Pride of workmanship, perseverance and creativity were represented in each, but in many cases, we could see another quality on display: devotion to the Creator God. In my view, it was a manifestation of the admonition from Colossians 3:23-24, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.”

Renaissance painters, not only Michelangelo but also masters like Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Roselli, labored countless hours on frescos and draperies to create scenes that depicted biblical characters and stories. Even if these artists were commissioned and compensated for their work, there is something exquisite and timeless about their work that could only have come through labors of love for their God.

Michelangelo's famed Pieta in St. Peter's Basilica.

Everywhere we visited in Italy we found churches and chapels boasting a level of craftsmanship rarely seen in our contemporary world. In fact, you might say in some respects they have an otherworldly quality to them, work undertken as a form of worship.

I suspect undergirding some of these projects was King Solomon’s declaration in Ecclesiastes 9:10, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.” If only we could see more people pursuing their work with that sort of passion and motivation today.