Skip to main content

2020: A Year of Beauty

2020 is upon us. Let's face it, we all expect this year to be ugly. Violence and unrest are spreading throughout the world. Tribalism of all sorts is on the rise. In America we enter the new year in the midst of a political maelstrom. The President has been impeached in what is potentially the most partisan era of American history since the Civil War, and to top it all off this is an election year. Public discourse on any issue seems to have vanished, and sadly even many Christians seem swept up in the taking of sides and blaming others that has taken hold in our society.

Ugly would be the nice way of saying how we all expect this year to go.

With such ugliness and nastiness comes a unique opportunity: a chance for followers of Christ to let their light shine in this present darkness. We have an opportunity, nay a responsibility, to show the people around us Christ. It is our duty and honor to live out our calling as peacemakers. We are called to be beautiful in a time of ugliness and despair.

Beauty is something our world desperately needs. Beauty, true beauty, brings people together. We see glimpses of it all the time. We see a glimmer of true beauty when we see a work of art or listen to a powerful song. It is that quality that we recognize in things or people as fundamentally good and desirable. The thing about something truly beautiful that is so intriguing is that it points to something beyond itself, something we all desperately need; God.

God is beautiful. I'd even go as far as to say that God is transcendent beauty itself; the very source of all things beautiful and the standard by which we determine beauty. God is desirable. God is good. The truly beautiful things of this world all point to God in their own small ways, each according to their measure. 

As Christians we are called to be beautiful, or full of beauty. This means that we are called to be full of God and constantly pointing the world towards him. This means not getting caught up in the partisan bickering of the politics of our age, but being peacemakers who always look for the truth no matter what side it may be on. It means a willingness to listen, a heart that is open to all people, and a fervent desire share beauty wherever we can.

Instead of letting 2020 be an ugly year full of bickering, hate, and turmoil let us strive to make it a year of goodness, truth, and beauty. As it says in Romans 12:21, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Do not give in to ugliness, but overcome that ugliness with the beauty that points to God.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thankful

Today is Thanksgiving, the day that we are supposed to celebrate all the things we are thankful for. It is a time of family reunions, football, and turkey eating. I sincerely pray that each and every one of you has a good day today. I'll admit that being thankful has not been easy for me this year. As pretty much all of you know, my mother passed away December of last year. Though she had been in the hospital for months, we were not expecting it. In fact I was sure she would be finally able to come home within a matter of weeks. Instead she peacefully passed on into the arms of Jesus, whom she loved more dearly than anyone else. As you can imagine, the entire family was heart broken. After what can easily be described as the worst Christmas ever, I returned to home to Illinois. It was here that I finally broke down. I spent the next months doing everything except being thankful. I cursed God, wept, screamed, begged to have her back, and was generally not the nicest person to be...
3 comments
Read more

Proverbs, Wisdom

Wisdom is an essential part of living a godly life. The ability to make good judgments and identify potentially sinful situations are skills all Christians should have. The Bible repeatedly emphasizes that it is the duty of parents and older Christians to pass on these skills and train younger generations in wisdom. The book of Proverbs is a book all about wisdom. The various authors of the book are trying to pass on the things they have learned to a younger generation. They want all that come after them to know that true wisdom comes from God. Background Like the book of Psalms, the book of Proverbs is a collection of various sayings and proverbs from many different people. The primary author we associate the book with is King Solomon, who wrote the most out of any single author, but he is just one of several writers. It is a very interesting book in this regard. The book of Proverbs can be tricky because it isn't always consistent in how the text flows together. Some...
Post a Comment
Read more

What is Theology?

Greetings all! For the first true post I have decided to cover what will be one of the defining aspects of this blog; theology. I know that when I was growing up theology wasn't a word that was used in the churches I attended. In fact I don't recall ever hearing the word until I was in high school, and even then it was used negatively like theology was a bad thing. Theology is inseparable from Bible study, Christian living, and being a disciple of Jesus in general. It is an indispensable part of being a Christian. The thing is we haven't always treated it that way. We have allowed our theology to fall by the wayside, believing it to be useless or not appropriate. So what is theology exactly, and why is it so important? What is Theology? The word theology simply means "the study of God." The goal of theology is to reveal who God is, and when we know God we also come to know ourselves, sin, the world, and so on. What we've done in the past (and this may ju...
1 comment
Read more