Beautiful Views, Beautiful God

“Feast your eyes, children!”

My girls hear me exclaim this almost every day. No matter where we are, I love to soak in the views. 

And we’ve been blessed with glorious views. My daughters were born on the sub-tropical island of Okinawa, where the East China Sea is pure turquoise and often as warm as a bath. We then spent a couple years in Europe where the architecture was daily breathtaking. Now we’re “back home” in Colorado where the Rocky Mountains can’t help but boast to the west.

Each day when we exit our neighborhood the purple mountains majesty greet us in the distance. The sun sets behind them, rightfully gloating. “Feast your eyes, girls!” I proclaim, whether we’re en route to the grocery store or heading up to the hills. The view just never disappoints. 

I know my awe is not unique. We are the eighth fastest growing state in the nation and added 77,000 people last year. When I was a girl in Denver I can honestly remember tumbleweeds blowing through downtown in Larimer Square. I remember people clad in cowboy hats saying, “Yeah, this is a cow town alright.” And it was. 

But the secret got out. As the national (and global) population is increasingly mobile, people move here, it seems, to revel in the outdoor glories. We’ve been crowned the leanest state in the nation by the Center for Disease Control for over a decade. Coloradans are walkers, bike riders, mountain climbers, skiers, runners. We love our great outdoors. 

You can’t help but turn your heart to God when you see the Front Range. With the Psalmist we say, “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2).

It’s true that God’s “invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20). His creation evokes awe and wonder and trust in the maker of it all. 

It is good and right to feast our eyes, to reflect on him who made the earth, and to praise him. 

Oh come, let us sing to the Lord;

let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;

let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

For the Lord is a great God,

and a great King above all gods.

In his hand are the depths of the earth;

the heights of the mountains are his also.

The sea is his, for he made it,

and his hands formed the dry land.

Psalm 95:1-5

So feast your eyes today. Take it all in and thank the Lord for it. Allow your heart to be moved and acknowledge that he who made all that, also made you. He who holds it all together, also holds you. He who handles every molecule in the massive universe, also handles every detail in your life. 

He is good and trustworthy and invites us to feast our eyes on his good creation. May the beauty we see provoke us to praise the beauty of his character.