Fallen Beauty

      I love nature. My wife and I both love to explore hiking trails and wander through forests.  We took our honeymoon in New Hampshire mainly for the mountains and the woods. This world we live in abounds with beauty and nearly everywhere you look there is a lovely view. I see all of this and I see the handiwork of an artist. I see the art of God.

     No human work has ever compared to the wonder of the world around us. We see lines and shapes and colors that seem to just erupt and exist and yet they are far more pleasing than the most exacting work of human art. A painting or statue, though lovely just doesn't command the same awe as a wondrous view. How can we even compare our own creations to the mountains and fields and streams?

     This brings up an interesting point though. You see, the world we live in isn't perfect -not by far. It's a broken world, a corrupt world, a sinful world. When Adam sinned it wasn't just the human race that fell under the curse but sin entered the world through them and poisoned everything! Then on top of that the earth was cursed against us so that our lives would be full of toil and danger. This beauty, this amazing world is really a horrible place. Yet it -is- beautiful. The power and artistry of God is so great that even in a world tainted by horrid evil and cursed so as to be a place of struggle is still breathtaking! How great is our God that His handiwork still shines though it's been thrown in the mud!  How great is His grace that the world we live in doesn't look like what we deserve or the curse we are under!

     This world shines as a testament to His Glory. Every rough stone and swaying tree, every butterfly and bird, every low valley or high mountain, every atom of creation screams of it's Creator! We do everything in our power to push aside the evidence, to try and make the amazing mundane, but I will not allow this world that hates God to rob me of my wonder at His hands. I will remain in awe of His work and I will call it what it is -art- from the hands of a master.

     I look forward to eternity, for many reasons. I long to be with my God, to be with Him in perfect communion. I long to be free from the temptation of sin, to no longer fail Him or choose to rebel. And I long for the new earth, for the glory and beauty of a world not yoked by the burden of sin. How glorious will the mountains be? How breathtaking the plains? How blessed are we to not only live in such a beautiful world but to know that those of us who know Him will transition to one of infinitely greater splendor? May God be praised for His mercy and grace, and for the marvelous work of His hands.

"It is as hard to explain how this sunlit land was different from the old Narnia as it would be to tell you how the fruits of that country taste. Perhaps you will get some idea of it if you think like this. You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away among mountains. And in the wall of that room opposite to the window there may have been a looking-glass. And as you turned away from the window you suddenly caught sight of that sea or that valley, all over again, in the looking-glass. And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different—deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more. I can’t describe it any better than that: if you ever get there you will know what I mean."

C. S. Lewis. Last Battle (Kindle Locations 1813-1819). San Val, Incorporated.