The Purpose of Beautiful Things
"In our day and age we live in a world consumed by beauty-- we love creativity and sharing our personal artistic expression has never been easier. But here's the thing: we cannot allow the beauty surrounding us to be our source of our worth and value."
Oh, that feeling when I walked into the quaintest coffee shop in Lincoln Park one blustery snowy day in late March and the barista handed me my dirty chai in a mason jar asking, "Is it okay? Sorry, we ran out of mugs!" I quickly nodded as my bubbling joy overflowed into a smile and I exclaimed, "More than okay-- it's perfect!" And it truly was "perfect"-- the foamy rimmed steamed milk tea setting at the rim of the mason jar created a picture-perfect, even (dare I say it?) Instagramable drink.
There are certain aesthetics that make my heart happy. And if I'm truly honest, certain aesthetics make me pull out my phone and snap a couple quick pictures with the intention of later posting on social media.
We live in a culture obsessed with the aesthetically pleasing. We form our aesthetic individually and collectively and we cling to it until our fists grow callous and our palms are red and raw.
As I folded laundry yesterday afternoon I paused to admire the golden sunlight streaking across the soft tones of fabric. I think we've all had milliseconds where we bring our lives to a screeching halt and live in the moment, captivated by some form of beauty. Sometimes it's the striking orange and pink pastels of a wintery sunset. Other times it's those soft brown eyes and slow tail wag of a Golden Retriever. We have an obsession with food and artistically displayed cuisine. We love the rich and colorful meaning behind old things that have strong stories-- like old papery-scented, yellowed-paged books and antiques that we feel have not yet lost their purpose. And then there are moments of seeing people and your heart just bursts a tiny bit with unfathomable love for the beauty that is humankind.
Beauty takes all forms, all shapes and sizes, both tangible and intangible, and we often find ourselves searching for deeper meaning, life, and even worth within the beauty itself.
In Christian community, we talk about the lure of sin. We talk about the ugliness and brutality, the grotesque posture of depravity. We wonder how we could get so deeply immersed and entangled. But we must also remember that often the lure of sin, the start of idolatry, begins small. It begins as a lure of deceptive beauty.
In the garden, Eve saw the fruit, and then she desired. She saw it as beautiful, something worth her time, something she believed would give her purpose. And she was so consumed by this desire that she put away all other desires, all other goodness, and ate the fruit set before her.
God created that fruit, He created that tree. God is light and in Him there is no darkness (1 John 1:5). That tree was not evil in of itself~~ God cannot create evil and let's not forget He called His creation "Good". But the tree did serve a tremendous purpose: it gave humanity the choice to either choose to come and abide in God, walking in obedience, or to reject Him and walk in disobedience.
Our God is the Creator of good and perfect gifts (James 1:16-18). He is the God of the good and lovely (Philippians 4:8-8). He is the God of beauty. It is not wrong to love the aesthetically pleasing, it is not wrong to even express beauty in our art and clothing and Instagram posts and in our daily lives, the way in which we live. It is wrong, however, to seek to find our worth and identity within that beauty... it is a sin to seek the creation over the Creator, making an idol out of the created.
The beauty of our God is selfless-- an outpouring of love that creates in us a burning desire to share in His triunity, to respond in praise and adoration of God and to show His beauty to the entire world.
The other day in my devos I was studying Psalm 27:4 which says, "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."
For me, this verse has been exceptionally convicting. An honest confession: many days my number one desire is not to seek after God and inquire in His temple (to worship Him and meditate on who He is).
In our day and age we live in a world consumed by beauty-- we love creativity and sharing our personal artistic expression has never been easier. But here's the thing: we cannot allow the beauty surrounding us to be our source of our worth and value. If we seek the beautiful things, the beautiful gifts, instead of the Giver of beauty and these gifts, we are setting ourselves up for failure. We are looking for our worth and value in a faint lifeless shadow of real and true worth. A bottomless pit of self-gratification instead of the eternal life-giving love of God.
Do not mistake the beauty that reflects God for God Himself. Do not worship the creation above the Creator. As Matt Capp so eloquently writes on Gospel Coalition, "As Christians, we understand that the revelation of beauty is an act of God's self-revealing love. The foundational theological assertion concerning beauty and aesthetics is that God alone is the source and substance of true beauty."
Let us abide in Christ, to seek after Him above all else, to find our worth in Him. It is in abiding and seeking after Him that we can truly express His light and beauty in a world grappling in darkness and the ugliness of sin. Next time you see something beautiful, allow it to turn your gaze upon the beauty of God (...before it makes you pull out your phone for yet another Instagramable moment).
Let us live and also create for His glory and allow the goodness and beauty to point us and others to God.