Views from the Lava Falls Route, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
I read an interesting quote by John Muir yesterday. He said,
“God never made an ugly landscape. All that the sun shines on is beautiful, so long as it is wild.”
Peaks and domes from Cloud’s Rest in Yosemite National Park, California
The quote more or less speaks for itself. When God created the world, He made all things well, and He saw that it was beautiful (Genesis 1:31). He made everything with an eye for beauty.
Rock formations at Chimney Bluffs State Park, New York
Of course, the sin of mankind has diminished some of the beauty – it’s pretty ugly the brutality and destruction it has brought in places. But the beauty remains, too, among the ugliness. And taken at face value or examined closely, it’s almost always beautiful.
Badlands near Angel Peak, New Mexico
I’ve woken to the sun over the badlands. The hills, so useless they’ve been called “bad land”, were rich in minerals and oil wells chugged not so far away. But there, in the glow of the rising sun, they were beautiful.
Cliffs and buttes at sunrise near the Angel Peak Campground, New Mexico
Some have described the wild and dry land of the southwestern US as “ugly”, “boring”, and other negative adjectives. It’s true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it’s also true that many can see past the desolateness and the barrenness to the beauty of what God has made.
Views near the Whitmore Trail, Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, Arizona
As Christians, we have an advantage over others when it comes to seeing the beauty in God’s creation. We are pursuing God and becoming more like Him (2 Corinthians 3:18, Romans 8:29, etc.) and as that happens, we begin to see the way that He sees. He created the world as He saw beautiful, and as we become more like Him, we see the beauty the way He sees it.
Peaks along the trail to Mono Pass, Inyo National Forest, California
It’s true in the wilderness and it’s true in how we see other people. As we learn to see as God sees, our perspective changes. Instead of only seeing the desolateness, the endless unchangingness, or the lack of what we would normally call “beauty”, we begin to see the way He created both the scenery and the person. It may come as a startling surprise the beauty in a desert plain or in a truly aggravating person. But seeing as God does allows us to interact with the situations we find ourselves in as He would react – and that is beautiful.
