beauty

i'll see if i can articulate this properly. You can definitely help me out by commenting below if there is anything you want to say on the subject that i might have been unclear on or completely missed. :)

So, we all know that creation was made in such a way that it points to God and explains Him in part and draws us to worship Him, right? When we see thundering waterfalls or vibrant, heavenly sunsets or gentle forests, our response, we know, ought to be to become completely awestruck and in love with the Creator. But what about when we see people? I'm not just talking about people who are physically beautiful, though that's a gift as well. I'm talking about ALL people. People are not just part of creation - they are made to be God's glory. God boasted about Job to Satan. He didn't boast about the Grand Canyon or the aurora borealis. He boasted about a MAN. Creation wasn't complete until He had made man. He made man in HIS image! Do you ever wonder at that concept? Not only are we eternal, but i believe it also means that each of us have bits of His beauty in us. Attributes of our Father that we naturally display. I don't mean just believers either. I mean everyone. I know you have all seen that person who seems to radiate with physical and internal beauty. They just seem to attract people everywhere they go. You can't help but fall in love with them. i would like to suggest that, while that is a gift given to them by God, there is a bit of that in the most unlovable person, and i would challenge you to look for that beauty in people in your life that you find hard to love. Maybe it's in their fearless heart. Or their simple joy in small things. Or the way they will quietly serve you without a word of complaint or reproach. God puts things like that in everyone to remind us of Him, and to help us love each other. In Ezekiel 16, He gives this eloquent story of His love for Israel. He starts out by talking about how she was unwanted (abhorred, actually) by everyone and left on the side of the road, in blood and filth.Yet, He takes her in, makes a vow to her so that she becomes His, and He endows her with all this royal beauty. And He says, in verse 14, "your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, which was made perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed upon you." He doesn't say "...on account of your beauty, which I gave to you once you became Mine". He says, "...on account of your beauty, which was made perfect..." I think that that is what God does in us when we become His. He doesn't put beauty in us. We weren't entirely ugly before we came to know Him. We did have ugliness (sin) in us, and it very much consumed us, but when we came to Him, He took it out of us and cultivated the beauty which He had already put in us, and continues to do so, so that His beauty is perfected in us. My point in saying that is not to downplay the seriousness of sin, or our own natural filth. I say this because i don't want you to come away  from this with the elitist, christianese, holier-than-thou mindset that we tend to have when finding out what God does in us, and look down on the ones who don't have their beauty "perfected". I want you to see the beauty in the lost, because THAT is what drives me to my knees praying for them and loving them. I see the beauty that the sin and destruction of the world is corroding in them and i see what incredible things God could make with that beauty and i want it to flourish in His care instead of wither and die in corruption. Do not think that i am telling you to focus on people instead of God. Because i see this beauty in people, i tend to love them too much, and not entirely in Jesus' ways. That is one of my faults, and that is my disclaimer. I have been hesitant to write about this because of my failings in this area, but after praying about it, and observing the lack of love i see because people don't see that beauty at all, i feel i should write about it anyway. I am learning to worship God as a result of observing people, and i am learning to love people better as a result of seeing Jesus' beauty in them, and that is my hope for you.