The Idolatry and Redemption of Beauty

"One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple." Psalm 27:4

Anything can become an idol. Even our false views of God, held within our minds all the while imagining we are worshiping the true God, can be a form of idolatry. In his incredible work The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer writes, "Let us beware lest we in our pride accept the erroneous notion that idolatry consists only in kneeling before visible objects of adoration, and that civilized peoples are therefore free from it. The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him...Wrong ideas about God are not only the fountain from which polluted waters of idolattry flow; they are themselves idolatrous."

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about beauty, the beauty of nature, the beauty of poetry, etc. However, at times I have not had my mind and heart set, first and foremost, upon the Fount and Author of beauty, the Master Artist, without whom no other beauty would be seen or much less exist. It is only in God that I truly see and experience the invited depths of beauty.

I find that there is often a sentiment among artists that art must flow out of angst, disappointment and separation; therefore, the worse the suffering, the better the art. While God is a redeemer and big enough to welcome us in bringing Him our pain, I believe that the most beautiful and worthwhile art is produced out of connection with the One who IS Life, not out of dwelling (or even increasing) in my feelings of disgust and despair.

Don't get me wrong, I do not subscribe to the candy coated view that to speak or live as a follower of Christ means to stuff or hide my struggles, whether internal or external, and walk around with a goofy, pie in the sky grin as if everything is coming up roses. There is a certain connectedness and beauty that emanates from a true, authentic expression of pain; however, for one who knows the Creator, pain, angst, and brokenness are never the end of the story. Most often they are aspects of life one must face to taste of redemption, but they are not the end.

No one is immune to disappointment. All of us live in a world that, as Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, has been "subjected to futility" (8:20), but the power of the good news is that this futility has been and is being dealt with through the Son. God the Father, through His Son, has redeemed, and is restoring, all things to Himself and to their rightful order. (see Romans 8:18-25) From creation to chaos to re-creation.

It takes faith to see God's story working out in this world. In another of his letters, Paul encouraged a faith-full outlook when he wrote, "For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:17-18). So, just as it takes faith to see and experience the relationship the Father offers through the Son, it also takes faith to see the fullness of beauty, the One who IS Beauty. Through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, God longs to come in and rewire and reconnect out natural eyes and our spirits so that we can see His goodness in creation and spiritually, in the depths of our being, taste that He is good.

With eyes finally wide open, strolling through the Father's gallery, we are freed to behold a beauty that leads, not to idolatry or confusion but, to worship. Out of this overflow of adoration, we are invited to gaze and enjoy AND to join in the work by dancing, singing, writing and shaping with Him and for Him.