Holding Beautiful

There's an old song by Third Day that always resonated with me. The song says -

And I want to love You

Love You more than life itself

And I want to hold You

Even though You can't be held

Because You're so much more

Than everything I've ever known

Anything, anything

I'd give anything

I would give anything to hold You

What is it about beauty that inclines us as humans to touch it, to hold it, to keep it? Why must we always posses the object of our attention?

This idea struck me the other day as I discovered a family of baby bunnies under a bush in our yard. With a shriek of glee, I ran over to try and catch one. I spent a good five minutes trying to chase and hold one of those poor baby bunnies. They were so beautiful and they looked so soft. However, as I crawled along the bush line trying to find them, I remembered something my Dad had told me years ago, "if you touch the baby rabbits or the baby birds that you find on the ground, your scent will scare away the mother and they will die of starvation". My desire to hold that which I admired might actually inflict harm on that which I loved.

Similarly, today I was outside when a beautiful butterfly flew past my head. Without thinking I followed it with my hands cupped, ready to catch it. When it was almost in reach I remembered that holding a butterfly would rub off the scales from it's wings and cripple it.

In contrast, I began to think about the beauty of God. Throughout the scriptures there are stories of zealous people who reached out to touch the Beauty of God. The beauty and glory of the Most High was so overwhelming that they died right then and there. How gracious of the Lord to present Himself to us as Invisible.

And then there are the times in the Bible when God gives us a glimpse of His Splendor. Exodus 33 gives the story of the boldness of Moses and the mercy of God -

¹⁸ Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory."

¹⁹ And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. ²⁰ But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."

²¹ Then the LORD said, "There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. ²²When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. ²³ Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen."

How fantastic is that? God showed Moses Himself but loved him enough not to show His face. Again in Isaiah 6 we read another encounter with the Beauty of the Lord -

¹ In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.² Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. ³ And they were calling to one another:
"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory."

⁴ At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

⁵ "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."

The Lord is gracious enough to not show us His great and awesome beauty. For we would want to hold it, to reach out and capture the beauty. In the same way, God, in His extravagant grace, lets us live our lives here on earth without direct contact to Him. If He were to, He might crush us. We are too fragile on this earth.

This kind of tension thrills me. To see so much beauty all around me and not be able to grasp it. To sit and watch the stars but not reach them. To admire a brightly colored bird in flight but not be able to catch it. To enjoy great friends but not be able to hold on to them forever. I look forward to the day when I can hold on to Beauty forever.

Sincerely,

Anna Elizabeth