If you study your surroundings deep enough, you will perhaps find a profound and complex beauty within and throughout the chaos. I believe that beauty resides in everything in the physical world just as I believe there is beauty in every step of faith; there is even opportunity to make deep rooted connections between the two environments — you just have to look for it.
Africa.
The climate is dry and the days are slow. Life feels uncomfortable in the physical and spiritual sense; it is here that both life and my faith feel torrid, coated in rust.
The slowness of the passing days frustrate me and I see this timid pace reflected in my faith. I know the fruit I desire, but the toil is slow and hard, and the prospect of progress exhausts me.
At first glance, it may appear as if there is a lack of beauty, a lack of God’s presence.
But if you look again, perhaps a bit more closely, there’s an earnest beauty there.
The mountainous expanse of land is divine, stretching far and wide and the sky always shines a clear, brilliant blue. The dryness in the air creates a striking contrast in which colors stand out against one another. Yellow golden rays of sunlight cut through the stillness. There’s a controlled, methodical beauty in the slowness of each day. It is in this paradigm shift that, through deeper consideration of the Lord’s character, I understand that my comprehension of this world shouldn’t undermine the incomprehensible wisdom of God:
“With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
2 Peter 3:8-9
Our flesh cannot comprehend the Lord’s timing. What we may understand as foolishness is rather brilliance in its purest form. His promises still stand, but they will be fulfilled according to his timing, in order to better glorify his name.
The slowness I experience in faith is an opportunity created for fruit to be bore in patience. Although there is dryness in faith, there is also such clarity. It’s in this clarity that the Lord reveals a path towards intimacy with him.
In the slowness and the patience your faith is tested, but never doubt what has been promised to you by the Father.
India.
At first glance, there is an obvious air of ebullience.
India is a kaleidoscope of culture and color, a place full of exuberant life.
But just beyond the vibrancy there is brokenness; a brokenness that screams to be acknowledged. It feels perhaps more desirable to turn a blind eye to the dissonance between the two seemingly opposite qualities that reside in this culture than to recognize the brokenness, but there’s beauty in the disjoint too.
Although my faith has become lucrative – there is vibrancy and there is intimacy with my Father – there is also brokenness in my Spirit that begs to be seen, and there is beauty in those fragments of brokenness. With such brokenness comes restoration, which brings glory to the Father; with obedience comes intimacy and in that intimacy the Lord promises restoration, so long as we abide in him. There is confidence in the sorrow, and there is beauty in the brokenness.
I have come to realize that ignorance towards brokenness is foolish. Without acknowledgment, there will be no true understanding and without legitimate comprehension, there isn’t space for evolution. It is in that understanding and growth that beauty resides; how could an unchanging, stagnant life be exquisite?
In order for restoration, there must be change and there is resounding beauty in that sentiment.
My physical surroundings and the environment of my faith have shifted and changed so dramatically in the last three months, but there is beauty to be found in each place, so long as it is truly sought after.
