Devotionals

Open Your Eyes to the Beauty of God

by Alan Allegra
05/14/26
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I recently read a very sad article that was forwarded to me by a fellow Christian. It wasn’t about a terrible accident or an international incident. The subject was not man’s inhumanity to man, our bleak future in the face of global warming (or cooling), nor a nuclear disaster. In fact, it wasn’t the subject of the piece that made me sad; it was the author. She was blind, yet the incident she described was an encounter with nature—not a natural disaster but a natural wonder of beauty and awe.

It was the missing subject of the article and the blindness of the author that saddened me. To be more specific, the writer was not physically blind but spiritually blind, and the missing subject was the Creator God.

The article was about her accidental encounter with the northern lights. Her opening line was, “Our lives are governed by wondrous phenomena that we don’t often stop to consider — but we’re missing out.” The well-written piece continues with statements expressing her awe at the wonders of magnetism and its marvelous effect on birds, sharks, and human bodies. The author marvels at the deep gratitude she felt for days, the feeling that there is magic in the world around us, and that beauty can emerge from nothingness. She declares that “[most people] don’t often contemplate the elemental forces that act on us every second of our lives.” While these are heartfelt observations, the conclusions fall short of the spiritual truths behind them.

The starting point for all discussion about creation and its wonders is Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Many more Bible verses reinforce this idea, such as Hebrews 11:3: “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”

It is true that we don’t often consider what—or who—governs our lives. We are not led by random forces or blind chance but by the sovereign God through his Son, Jesus Christ, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16, ESV). Nothing happens by accident or without purpose.

In a sense, beauty has emerged from nothingness, spoken into existence by the God who created everything to reflect his glory. “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And the expanse is declaring the work of His hands” (Psalm 19:1, LSB). There is, of course, much about creation that we cannot comprehend, but by faith we can appreciate that “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11, ESV). We can stand in awe of his works while realizing we cannot understand all that he does or how the universe works.

The prophet Zechariah exclaims, “For how great is his goodness, and how great his beauty!” (Zechariah 9:17, ESV). A powerful aspect of God’s beauty is his goodness. He not only gave us this perfectly-engineered home; ”God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, ESV).

When we contemplate with awe the wonders around us, let us not fix our gaze on what we see, “but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17). For when we take for granted the wonders around us—magnetism, auroras, babies, love, kindness—and leave the Creator out of our thoughts, we truly do miss out. We may gaze with thankfulness, but we need to know who to thank. Let’s join the psalmist and say, “All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your saints shall bless you!” (Psalm 145:10).