All that is in the world
Now let us see thy beauty, Lord,
As we have seen before. Benjamin Waugh
1 John 2:15—17
The world I inhabit is certainly impossibly beautiful to me. I have seen beauties in it that I cannot bring myself to despise. Attractive, glorious beauty. I cannot turn myself into a world-hater. I would be diminished if I did. But even in this, I do have this knack of diminishing myself. It’s when my desire falls outside of what glorifies God, outside what I can delight in before him and with him. When I set my eyes or my pulses or my grasping hands on what was never made to reflect my God. Then I can turn it all tawdry. Just like that. And I am back on my knees again, spoiled and sorry, short of the glory. Because I’ve twisted the glory, torn it from God and his purpose and tacked it onto myself and my purpose.
Again I declare before you, Jesus, my Lord and my God, that all things were made through you and for you.[1] In you all things have their proper place. Through you all things are given their proper value. I cannot make anything more beautiful than you have. Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of those lilies.[2] I can and I do lose the glory and divine lustre of all life. I can and I do distort even the most supreme beauty. It turns lurid when I make it mine to use rather than yours to glorify. Let me see your beauty above all things and then in all things. Let all things be yours before they are mine.
[1] Colossians 1:16
[2] Matthew 6:28—29