Are We Wasting the Beauty Around Us?

Pretty much every evening when I step out the front door, or even glance from our windows, I get to be met with that view up there.

I get to see these massive sunsets that stretch clear and unobstructed from buildings and houses.

It’s not unusual for our friends when they come to visit to comment on the gorgeous horizon we get to see every evening, and I cannot lie- four years later in this house, and I can’t get over it either.

Whether I am taking out the trash, running to get something I left in the van, or closing the blinds in our house, I always have to pause and just stare at the view I get to look at every day. I always think, “Wow, we get to live here and see this every day?”

The other day as I looked at the view, I couldn’t help but feel something else- a sense of guilt maybe? Coupled with a strong sense of responsibility as I stared at the scene in front of me. Don’t waste this view- my heart cried out to me.

Here I am seeing the majesty of God displayed through creation each day, and while I found beauty- was I wasting what it could mean to me? Wasting who it was supposed to drive me to? I don’t want to be so focused on the beauty of these sunsets, and forget that it shows just a fraction of the beauty of the One who made it.

“Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways,
    and how small a whisper do we hear of him!
    But the thunder of his power who can understand?” Job 26:14

This beauty we see all around us, is but a whisper! There is way more to behold- and we don’t find it from staring longer at that sunset, or thinking up our own ideas about God- it’s from digging into His Word, and reading about who He is, His character, and constantly growing in complete awe of him.

²³ Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, ²⁴ but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me…” Jeremiah 9:23-24

We all see some beautiful sites each day- whether we live in the county or in the middle of the city. There is beauty in the tulips coming up in the planters, in a butterfly flying by, or even in the creation of people- our babies laughing, or our daughter twirling. The question is, are we settling for that incomplete and sin-tarnished whisper, or are we using it to remind ourselves to hunger and thirst to know more of our great God?  Does it motivate us to search His Word to see more of Him?  Hosea 6:3 says that if we seek to know Him, he will come to us “as the spring rains that water the earth.”

So next time I see that amazing sunset before me, I don’t want to waste it- I want to be reminded, encouraged, and driven to seek to know my God even more. And when I seek after Him, I know I will not be disappointed.