Beauty

Beauty really does something to you. This weekend, for a long weekend, I am staying with a couple of friends in an amazing mountain top house. 

The first day, and maybe still today on the third day, I’m a little startled by the beauty. It is as if in the last intensive busy season of life, I forgot how good life can be. 

I am tired in a way four days cannot heal. But four days can remind me that God created a good and beautiful world and God will restore. 

How can we hope for restoration if we don’t have an idea of what restoration will look like? 

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭4:8‬ ‭NIV‬‬

http://bible.com/111/php.4.8.niv

I used to find this verse very important and very much a challenge when I was dealing with the darkness of human trafficking. 

Now I find it just as important when dealing with the darkness of the world as a whole. The news can be so depressing. Personal loss can be overwhelming. Work can be so exhausting. 

Part of the remedy is to cultivate a habit of thinking about the good, the pure, the lovely, the true, the just. 

This place is beautiful. It makes it easier to imagine that there is a good that the world can be restored. The world will not be never ending tears and exhaustion. 

Shah will not be resurrected to blah. We will be resurrected to a restored world where this beauty and rest is the norm.