Enjoying God in Everything: A 5-Day Study by Steve Dewittنموونە

The relishing of beauty is universal in all human cultures around the world. We cannot live without it. We are made in every way to delight in it. To see it. To hear it. To taste it. To touch it. To smell it. These senses enable us to receive into our minds and souls the world around us.

It is no coincidence that we live in a cosmos filled with beautiful sights and tastes and smells and sounds, and we “happen” to have senses that correlate perfectly to them. Even without the biblical testimony, isn’t it plausible that our capacities point to a Creator who made them for us and us for Him?

Our desires also speak to our purpose. We are made for God’s beauty, and all beauty is God’s beauty. When we see or hear or taste or smell one of the created reflections of God’s beauty, we love it; something emotional and spiritual happens inside us. But beauty is not just for beauty’s sake—its chief goal is to be both a gift and a map. It is a gift to be enjoyed and a map to be followed back to the Source of the beauty with so that we may express wonder with praise and thanksgiving.

Wonder is what image-bearers feel when they glimpse a reflection of God’s beauty. God has designed us in such a way that any experience of His glory powerfully moves us. And it is fantastic. Beauty brings us to tears, shouts, meditations, cheering, laughter, and sobbing.

This is beauty’s blessing and curse. God created beauty for a purpose: to give us the experience of wonder. And wonder, in turn, is intended to lead us to the ultimate human expression and privilege: worship. Adam and Eve did this with every experience of beauty in the garden. Every morning the heavens (and everything else) declared the glory of God, and as the first humans saw the sunrise, the beauty produced wonder, and the wonder led them to worship. They saw the beauty all around them as a reflection of God’s nature and used it as a starting point to praise Him.

We are made for God, and all our wonder moments are a search for Him.