looking through me

Tag: faith

gift of creation

What if each sunrise and sunset was a gift? What if each birdsong and flower petal was purposeless embellishment? What if clouds were ornamental? What if colors were perks? What if God intended them all to give pleasure?

Not to say they weren’t designed to be functional, but what if the beauty is as important as the function . . . or even more so? It’s hard to imagine God created for practicality and that aesthetics were merely the byproduct. It’s harder to imagine His declarations of goodness were based on successful configuration and not perfection in every dimension.

Couldn’t the water cycle be a massive piece of performance art? Couldn’t the earth’s orbit of the sun be an opportunity to feature the fracturing of light waves across the ultraviolet spectrum and not just an exercise in the division of day and night? Couldn’t the zebra’s stripes be for a toddler’s delight and not only for survival? Maybe the art came first, and the scientific infrastructure was built to showcase it.

The more I explore the hows and whys of the world, the more the intricacies and the beauty captivate me. Science gives shape and language to the mystery but never diminishes it. Investigating nature’s marvels increases my amazement—each answered question leads to new reverence. The complexities magnify the wonder of the Creator.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Rocks don’t have to shimmer and sparkle. Running water doesn’t have to sing. But it is this way. And it is good.

 

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good friday (and saturday)

Good Friday. Not the first one—not for the disciples—nothing good about it.

Had I been with them, how long would I have stayed in the garden before I ran? How far would I have fled? Would I have trembled in the eerie midday darkness and watched my Hope die on that tree? Or would I have cowered far away? Maybe I would have needed to watch. Or maybe I would have needed deniability as I tried to fit the shattered pieces of the past three years into some semblance of sense.

And what about Saturday? Were the eleven back together by then? Mourning? Panicking? Planning? Arguing? Praying? Or maybe they were silent. Stunned. Confused. Angry. Afraid. These were the ones who didn’t have the faith to cast a demon out of a boy or the discipline to stay awake and keep watch with Jesus or . . . or . . . or . . . the list of failures was long. What would that Saturday when their world failed have been like for them?

Today I endure Friday because Sunday’s coming, because I know the end of the story. But they lived through each agonizing minute devoid of Hope. It would have been a brutal test of faith even if they’d understood everything Jesus had told them, so how much worse was it when they didn’t get it?

I can’t begin to experience how the disciples felt that first Friday and Saturday. I can’t fathom their devastation and fear. The one for whom they’d given up everything to follow was dead and buried. Three years, their expectations, their reputations, their futures: gone in less than a day.

So this Saturday I sit in the waiting. Uncomfortable. Antsy. A little less judgmental of the fleet-footed disciples. Because I know and celebrate what they’ll learn tomorrow: the tomb is empty and Hope is alive!

 

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