All Things Beautiful
READ
Have you ever wondered why a sunset moves us to tears? Why music can transport us to another emotional plane? Why a perfectly ripe strawberry offers more than mere nutrition—it offers delight? Today's verse reveals that beauty isn't accidental—it's intentional. God "makes everything beautiful in its time."
Let’s take a moment to read Ecclesiastes 3:11:
He has made everything beautiful in its time and set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
REFLECT
The author of Ecclesiastes, who elsewhere laments life's seeming meaninglessness, pauses here to acknowledge beauty's profound purpose. Beauty isn't merely decorative; it's revelatory. When we encounter beauty—whether in nature, art, relationships, or ideas—we're glimpsing something of God's character and creativity.
Notice the temporal element: "beautiful in its time." Some things reveal their beauty only in the proper season or from the right perspective. The bare winter tree appears dead until spring reveals the purpose of its dormancy. The struggle that seems pointless becomes beautiful when we later recognize how it shaped us. Even death, the ultimate enemy, contains a strange beauty when viewed as the doorway to eternal life for those in Christ.
This points to the second half of our verse: God has "set eternity in the human heart." We respond to beauty because we're made for something beyond the physical and temporary. C.S. Lewis described it as "the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited." Beauty awakens our longing for the eternal, perfect beauty of God Himself.
The implications are profound. If God makes everything beautiful in its time, then even the seemingly ugly, broken aspects of our lives and world have potential for redemptive beauty. The Japanese art of kintsugi repairs broken pottery with gold, highlighting rather than hiding the breaks. Similarly, God doesn't discard our brokenness but transforms it into something more beautiful than the original—often in unexpected timing.
Today, receive beauty as God's gift that speaks to your eternity-tuned heart. And remember that God is still working beauty into existence—even in situations where you can't yet perceive it.
RESPOND
Take a moment to process what God might be leading you to do in light of what you read.
What form of beauty most consistently awakens your senses and draws you toward God?
Where in your life are you waiting to see God "make everything beautiful in its time"?
REST
Take a moment to rest in God’s presence and consider one thing you can take away from your time reading, then close your devotional experience by praying:
Beautiful Creator, thank You for filling our world with glimpses of Your glory. Open my eyes to the beauty You're creating, even in unexpected places. Satisfy the eternal longing You've placed in my heart with more of Yourself and Your beautiful presence. Amen.