Tea Time With God: Take Time for Beauty

Take Time for Beauty

One thing I have desired of the Lord, that I will seek.... to behold the beauty of the Lord. Psalm 27:4.

"Keep a place in life for beauty," says English preacher Leslie Weatherhead. "He who keeps a little place in his life for beauty will find that it does something for him and in him, and that something is a process that goes on when the beauty is no longer before his eyes and ears, like a seed growing secretly in the dark.God, by a secret ministry, can turn the sight of a snowflake into hope and the dight of the dawn into courage.

Beauty feeds our souls like food nourishes our bodies. Beauty points us to the transcendent, takes us beyound our finiteness and opens our hearts to that which is greater and larger than ourselves. There is something about great beauty that brings into the awesome presence of the infinite and the eternal.

In reflecting on his priorities, a prominent British scientist said he would give more time to the enjoyment of things that are beautiful:"If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week; for perhaps the part of my brain now atrophied would have thus been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more possibly to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature."

We sometimes need to be reminded to slow down enough to find beauty in those things we hurry by each day. Let's take time for the beauty. Make a date with yourself to stroll through an art gallery, visit a beautiful church, or linger in a park or garden.

If there simply is not time, then remember the beautiful places captured in memories-- moments of sheer joy, or a mental "snapshot" of a majestic, snow capped mountain or moonlit night.

Let God use the beauty He created to awaken in you the desire for more of Him..