Albuquerque in October: Not much is green. No blossoms to be seen. Very few trees to be found; the hidden few were small and scrubby. The primary colors are brown, with a complimentary and bewildering array of earth tones. This collection of colors and paucity of vegetation would normally be considered ugly at best. Not so!

    The mountains, with their rugged beauty, offered a massive stage on which God would display his awesome daily dramas. One night the lightning danced across their peaks and brought the fresh smell of new rain as each heavy drop exploded on parched dusty ground. Each morning the sun would “epiphanize” their massive presence as the light broke across the sky behind them. At sunset, the broad vista to the west filled with the colors of sunset, as the dying light danced in reflection across the mountains’ craggy faces.

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course. But so often, we, as the beholder, limit our imaginations and accept only the narrowest and most comfortable of possibilities.

Where are the flowers?
Where are the towering oaks and their fluttering fall leaves full of color?
Where are the cascading waterfalls, clear pools, and rippling brooks?
What’s beautiful about brown, beige, rust, taupe, tan...?

So it is in the family of God...

    So it is in the family of God. We often miss the beauty in the people God has placed around us because they don’t come in the popular colors or don’t know the latest rage. Young and old, we discount them because they are hard to get to know or their beauty is masked by shyness or its opposite (cf. 1 Timothy 4:12; 5:1-2). Without knowing their story, we don’t know their rugged beauty or their tests of faith that have made them people of character (cf. James 1:2-4). Without seeing with the eyes of God, we don’t know the purpose and the gifts he made in them when he formed them in their mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13-16). Without walking beside them, we don’t see the artistry that God has placed in them as his children of grace (Ephesians 2:8-10).

    In your walk with Jesus over the next few weeks, God will lead a large number of people into your life. Rather than discounting them by merely looking at them through the eyes of contemporary, clannish, prejudicial eyes of flesh, ask God to help you see the beauty that only he can see and ask him to use you to do his work in them (John 9:1-3).

    Yes, some beauty is different than the popular colors or the preferential landscapes. The beauty of God’s children is also often sometimes masked by our own limited vision. Find the rugged beauty and the stunning vistas God has placed around you in the people you’ve overlooked, avoided, neglected, shunned, or forgotten. Yes, some of them will be filled with annoying entanglements, but others will offer you a new and fresh view of God’s marvelous, beautiful, and multi-faceted grace (1 Peter 4:10).

Title: "Rugged Beauty and Broad Vistas"
Author: Phil Ware
Publication Date: October 15, 2001

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