Beauty and Worship – The Ultimate Welcome – Episode 14

 We are all made with a longing for beauty, for loveliness, and loveliness is meant to point us toward God.

What to worship and beauty have to do with each other?  What does it mean to “awaken the palate,” spiritually speaking?

Because God created beauty and He instilled it in us, we can worship Him as we create and behold the things that are lovely.  Think about some of the areas of your life that are beautiful, or where you long to create loveliness.

• Food and drink
• Art we observe
• Art we create – from coloring pages to candle making
• Home decor
• Music
• Creation
• Anything that utilizes our senses

We reflect a part of God’s nature when we use these senses.  Consider, just a moment, our sense of smell.  The imagery is throughout scripture.  Two notable places we see the sense of smell are in the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, where the aroma of sacrifice is a blessing to God… only when it is accompanied by a heart of true repentance.  Again we see God’s pleasure in an aroma in Revelation, when the prayers of the saints are seen as lifted up in bowls as incense to God.

In an article for Desiring God, Denise Kohlmeyer explains “Four Aromas God Loves Most.” Our prayers, our repentance, our witness, and our love are all a blessing to God’s senses.  She makes an excellent biblical case for how our lives create a sweet aroma to God as we live with focus on Him.  This particular sense (smell) helps us see the root of anything lovely we create:  we encounter God in His word, and then our experience with Him shapes how we live.  The beauty we create and the beauty we behold are rooted in, and give glory to, God Himself.

Our lives of obedience are lovely to God.

Philippians 4:4-9 says: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”

We see here – we begin by rejoicing in God!  We look at who He is and what we has done, and we celebrate it.  Then, we refuse to be led by anxiety and worry about our circumstances, offering our concerns to Him in prayer.    As we give God our concerns, He gives us peace, only found in Him, which then “guards our hearts and minds!”  As He does this, we respond by continuing to place our attention, our focus, on what is true, lovely, excellent, and praise-worthy.  It’s almost like a circle, where God shapes how we think and live, we yield and walk in that, and He is pleased with our responsive obedience.

It is important to note: our worship/obedience is tied to our repentance.  We may need to grieve where we have wronged God, in order to fully worship Him.  It’s interesting that in the Old Testament, repentance was illustrated with fire – with sacrifice, literally burning something.  We may need to position our hearts to “burn” what is not from God, and when we do that, the aroma of our repentance is beautiful to Him!

We can use beauty as a way of worship.

When I was in college I read a book called Embodied Prayer that really influenced how I saw worship. I’d grown up studying dance since I was a little girl, and dance was a way I worshiped God.  The author articulated how the psalmist connected body and soul, how in much of western society, we’ve developed an unhealthy understanding of our bodies.  That began a lifelong journey for me, of celebrating how God has put us in earthly bodies and how we can use those bodies to glorify Him. Today it’s still hard for me to physically “be still” when I worship!

Earlier we read from Philippians 4 and were reminded where we are called to put our focus.  Whatever is true, whatever is lovely… this is where we spend our mental energy and attention.  We do this as a way to set our hearts on the glory of God!

We can use artistic expression to glorify God.  Whether we sing, create art, even preparie a meal that is lovely and delicious, we can praise Him creatively! 

*FIRST, always we find Him, we find truth, as we “feast” on scripture.  

1. Lovely music (make sure it is truth-rooted, not just beautiful!) – church experiences
2. Bible journaling/art (don’t cover up the Word!)
3. “Seeing Scripture combined with visual imagery is another way for us to hide God’s Word in our hearts. It helps me meditate on and memorize God’s Word. I can recall an image and verse in moments when I need comfort, reassurance, or confidence from God. And I think others can experience the same blessing!” – Laura VanDyk (source)
4. Movement – dance before Him! 
   1. Pagan worship, but we also see evidence of believers dancing in worship (David) – but also within the church “done in order” (see 1 Corinthians 14:40)
5. “Defiant Joy” – keep coming back to Him and seeing Him in the midst of hard places 
   1. Philippians 4 earlier!
6. Create a haven – for our time with Him and for others to encounter Him in our homes
   1. “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” – 1 Corinthians 10:31 (all things are lawful, not all things are beneficial – on participating in food or activities)
   2. Some of my Bible study resources that add loveliness to routine 🙂

So here’s a question: Why do we crave beauty?  

When my family and I moved from Florida to New Jersey, I was dismayed to notice how expensive restaurants were, in contrast to how ugly they often were.  It’s as if chefs and owners didn’t think cleanliness or design were vital to the experience of their food, or worthy of the customer’s (and their) investment.  And yet for me, eating in a beautiful place absolutely increases the enjoyment of food.

I don’t think this is an unusual experience – I think we are all meant to long for, to create, and to enjoy, beauty.  John Piper comments on why this may be:

“There is in the human heart an unquenchable longing for beauty. And I am persuaded that the reason it is there is because God is the ultimately Beautiful One and he made us to long for himself.” – John Piper  (source)

We long for beauty, because we long for the One who is Beauty.

C.S. Lewis, in The Weight of Glory, explains it this way: “We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”  So we don’t just long to SEE beauty – we want to immerse ourselves in it instinctively.  And this is because we are made in the image of God, to dwell in unity with Him.

ALL LOVELINESS originates and culminates in Christ – and that is ultimately where we will experience truth, joy, beauty. 

It’s important not to elevate the lovely things, the experience of beauty, to the status of God’s priority in our lives.  We can buy beautiful Bibles (and I do love mine), and make scripture art, and create the coziest corner and morning routine for reading our Bibles.  We can cook delicious meals and sing and dance, write and speak lovely things. But ultimately, we do any of these things to find and worship Jesus.  Ultimately, we don’t NEED any of these things – we only need Christ.  And it’s worth tossing aside every good thing in our lives to pursue Him.

Robert Murray M’Cheyne said it best in Letters to a Soul Seeking Christ: “The truest, purest joy flows from a discovery of Jesus Christ. He is the hidden treasure that gives such joy to the finder (Matt. 13:44).”

Matthew 13:44-45 – reminds us the kingdom of heaven is a treasure worth selling all we have, and a pearl worth getting rid of everything we own.  This understanding will shape how we approach what we do have, and we’ll talk about that in the next episode.

Again John Piper weighs in for us: “I do believe that deeply rooted in every human heart is a longing for beauty. Why do we go to the Grand Canyon, the Boundary Waters, art exhibits, gardens? Why do we plant trees and flower beds? Why do we paint our inside walls? Why is it man and not the monkeys who decorated cave walls with pictures? Why is it that in every tribe of humans ever known there has always been some form of art and craftsmanship that goes beyond mere utility? Is it not because we long to behold and be a part of beauty? We crave to be moved by some rare glimpse of greatness. We yearn for a vision of glory. – John Piper (source)

Let’s flash to a story that’s almost too familiar for many of us, in a way that we often miss a zinger of an observation (at least I did, until recently!).

In Luke 10 we see the story of Mary and Martha hosting Jesus.  They seem to have created a lovely environment for his visit,  Imagine being Martha who literally “welcomed Him into her house.”  This was a good thing!  She worked hard to honor the One who is worthy of all honor. 

“We long to create because we were made by a creator. God is in the business of creating places for his people. He is the original homemaker. So here we are in the gap somewhere between the garden and the city. We are made to crave beauty. We are made to crave home,” says Myquillyn Smith in her book Cozy Minimalist Home: More Style, Less Stuff. 

But in her cozy-ing, Martha infamously got a little complain-y that Mary was sitting while she worked.  And here’s what I noticed today: Jesus tells her “what is necessary” is that Mary, sitting at His feet, listened to His teaching.  It wasn’t even so much the sitting, but the fact that she gave Him her full attention as He spoke.  So when we are creating beauty, it’s of utmost importance (the “only thing necessary, so to speak) that we listen to His teaching.  We elevate His Word (and remember, Jesus is the Word!)) above any experience, however lovely, we may crave.

Mary “listened to His teaching,” and Martha “was distracted.”  Beauty and art have a place in worship as we seek to give glory to God who is beauty and truth! Ultimately, we offer God our best worship when we give Him our full focus.  May we be people who love God with our whole heart and mind, even as we seek to live lives that create loveliness, and invite others to experience Him personally.

In episode 16, we’ll explore how we create beauty in welcome, in a way that has eternal purpose.

RESOURCES

• Listen to Episode 13: Salted Honey: The Words We Eat and The Words We Speak
• Some of my Bible study resources that add loveliness to routine 🙂
• Ways to Engage With the Bible Artistically
• Art and Music: A Student’s Guide by Munson, Drake and Dockery
• Five Ways to Use Art to Deepen Your Faith, by Laura and Jason VanDyke of God’s Fingerprints
• Embodied Prayer, Celeste Snowber Schroeder