What is beautiful? Maybe you have stood at the base of fantastic mountains, like these in the Grand Tetons, and your breath was taken away. Maybe you have stood on the shore of a perfectly still lake in the early morning, as the morning mist was lifting, and the silence and beauty captured your heart.
I am convinced that one of the obstacles that keeps us from growing in faith and from becoming like Christ is that we don't see God's holiness with that same sense of awe. The truth is we have a vision problem and our favorite optometrist can't correct it. Our problem is that when we consider God's holiness, we don't see beauty. We see rules and morals and an unattainable purity that weighs us down rather than inspires us. We need God to open our eyes to see the beauty of his holiness.
Consider these words of David in Psalm 27:4.
"One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek:
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 seek him in his temple." NIV
David had great vision. The reason He was so passionate in His pursuit of God, was that He "saw" the beauty of the Lord. When I met my wife, one of the things that drew me to her was her beauty. When I "gazed" at her beauty, I was highly motivated to pursue her. That same motivation is possible in our relationship with God. I'm sure Paul felt that way when He wrote about knowing Christ in Philippians 3.
This is why in Psalm 29:2, God commands us through David to,
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. NIV
Splendor is an "awe" word, it's a breathtaking word. When we see the beauty of God's holiness it takes our breath away and it motivates us to pursue the Lord. Faith and beauty walk hand in hand. Beauty inspires faith and faith pursues the ultimate beauty, the beauty of the Lord.
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