Vol. 1 No. 2 — Admiring beauty.

May 30, 2025

*This is the second issue of a previous iteration of this newsletter. It was called Heart Stuff & Coffee. I’m adding all previous issues here to be part of the archive.

I just want to take a moment to talk about something that's been on my heart. I love and admire beauty. I hunger for it. I'm an artist and enjoy making beautiful things. It comes with the job, right?

I was made -designed- to admire and crave beauty. But the beauty I was designed to crave is not the beauty of the world- i.e. beautiful art, sublime poetry & prose, aesthetics, an attractive face, not even nature’s beauty- but God's beauty. The beauty of the almighty, all-knowing creator of the universe and everything in it. The beauty of His astonishing character.

The beauty of this world will never satisfy. It wasn't meant to. Trying to squeeze worldly things (and people) to get more out of them than they were ever meant to give is exhausting, disappointing and even harmful to both the squeezer and squeeze (is that a word? *shrug*).

The more God is showing me only He can satisfy and is guiding me toward Him, away from the world, the more I feel myself squeezing, clinging. Have you ever felt this way?

However, when I DO spend time with Him in HIs word and in prayer I find that I am actually satisfied. But we are "like a man who looks at his face in a mirror, and after observing himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like." James 1: 23-24

We are forgetful creatures and our whole flesh is against God. That is why we must continually come to God asking the Holy Spirit to enable us to be willing and open. To grow a desire in us for God and His Word. This is my prayer for you, friend. And my prayer for myself, as well.