The unseen beauty.

Psalms 33:5
5 The LORD loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of his unfailing love. (NIV)

Have you watched the news lately? It seems very much like the end times with wars, rumors of wars, pestilence, and violence. It doesn’t seem like such a beautiful place. Power struggles and hatred dominate. Yet it is still true that the earth is full of God’s unfailing love.

Most of us are slaves to our environment. We are boxed in by what we see and what we feel. The overbearing negativity pumps us full of anxiety, irritation, and vitriol. But we are not of this world. We have access to the Kingdom of Heaven everywhere we are, but we must have eyes to see. The key to the shalom peace God intends for us is having the eyes to find the good hidden in the bad. It is to search out the beauty in the wicked.

In all things, God is working to reveal His love. To see His love, we must see past the present to the intent God has for the present. What is God attempting to teach? What is He attempting to transform and change? When God allows the wicked, His intent is to reveal the darkness of that path. He stirs our ontological need for something better, something good and pleasant. He is moving us to change paths, end relationships, reconcile with estranged family members, go back to church, get help for addictions, seek the spiritual, to find Him.

Remember, for a short time to allow humanity a choice to follow God or reject Him, God has given dominion to Satan to rule this age. The Bible says Satan is the ‘god of this age.’ The enemy works each day to gouge out our eyes with heartache, pain, fighting, screaming, anger, disease, death, divorce, and more. We must be resolute in our fight to keep him from holding us hostage in what can be seen. We must live in the beauty of the unseen.

Beyond this world is the beauty that has always been. It is the beauty of God being restored. Scripture teaches us God makes all things beautiful in His time. Our challenge is to see His beauty while it is still unseen. Then we can love, truly love. We can love ourselves, our neighbors, our enemies, our church, our politicians, our world. His love is everywhere creating good even in the bad.

Prayer: Lord, give me the discipline to search beyond what is seen to keep my eyes on what is unseen, the beauty emanating from your love. Amen.

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