Appreciating and Delighting in the Beautiful

The closer we are to God, the more we awaken to and appreciate all His wonders and beauty around us. Solomon had the greatest wisdom of any man who ever lived, and because of it he was a prolific scientist, poet, and architect - experiencing and displaying the marvelous attributes of God through art and discovery. God is creative and beautiful, and we come to know Him more through these things. In the same way, we can also share Him with others through beauty.
If God was cold and boring, He would have just made one kind of tree and said, "here you go, breathe it." Instead, He created a multitude of kinds of plants and flowers, which may seem so fragile and pointless to a practical mind, but give joy and delight to the childlike. He created art, various landscapes, and music - along with all five senses for us to experience Him and declare Him through. God's beauty allows us not to just hear, but to also see, taste, and feel who He is. 

"This is the LORD'S doing; It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the LORD has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it."- Psalm 118:24. 

Check out Joy Loewen's awesome blog post on beauty:

http://joyloewen.blogspot.com/2014/05/awakening-to-beautiful.html

God Is Not Dead

I am so thankful that I was able to be present at this conference last weekend, though clearly the most under-qualified of all the presenters. The experience was a blessing and I hope to be part of another one in the future.

 "The Religious Turn: Secular and Sacred Engagements with Literature and Theory."

Check out the article by John Wilson:
http://www.booksandculture.com/articles/webexclusives/2014/may/religious-turn.html?paging=off

This conference encouraged me that Jesus can be glorified in all that we do - even homework (an Eng 123 paper)! Although there were many different perspectives at this conference - it was exciting to be part of a dialogue about faith and literature. It was a blessing to see how we can learn from and challenge each other to more boldly, lovingly, and truthfully engage the secular with the sacred through literature.

◄ Hebrews 6:13-20 ►

      13For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, 14saying, “I WILL SURELY BLESS YOU AND I WILL SURELY MULTIPLY YOU.” 15And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. 16For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. 17In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, 18so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. 19This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, 20where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.