The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Psalm 19:1
“Find things beautiful as much as you can, most people find too little beautiful.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) in Life According to Vincent, edited by Nienke Bakker and Ann Blokland (Van Gogh Museum) 137.
For the next week as I travel to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, I brought this book with me, so I hope you enjoy this dive into quotes from his letters with header photos from some of his paintings.
Look at the cover image. I zoomed in on The Ravine, by Vincent van Gogh (1889). It’s a little known painting of two women walking through a deep ravine by a river.
It reminds me of the ministry of my wife, Jenni, sojourning with people often through deep valleys as a spiritual director. That’s beautiful. This illustrates my main point today.
Along the way, Jenni finds beauty, by looking for God in everything. With my apostolic and prophetic gifting, I must admit that I can walk into a setting and discern what is wrong in the setting.
I am good at seeing the opposite of what’s beautiful at every moment. Yet, and this may be why I like to use his paintings on the cover of my books, he captures both beauty and brokenness with unmatched brilliance.
When I write, I try to help people see God’s beautiful design for whatever topic I am writing about. So for me to find more beauty, I need to block time to write. Look for that to increase.
After visiting both the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, the two largest collects of Vincent’s paintings in the world, I felt stirred to think about the covers and content for many more books.
What about you? What might you do to find more beauty? I think David, the Psalmist would say, go outside. See how creation reflects the abundant beauty of our Creator.
I think generosity in every moment may be helping people notice God and His abundant generosity in creation, in people, in situations, and in the most ordinary things.