Hidden Beauty

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I love beautiful flowers.  My favorites are white roses, hydrangeas and tulips.  But I love all kinds of beautiful, colorful flowers.


I especially love photographing them, perhaps because I seem to be allergic to almost anything that grows, so I can best enjoy most flowers by looking at a picture, rather than having a vase of them in my house.

The other day we were visiting a house near our neighborhood and I saw a vine growing on a mailbox which had blooms unlike any I had ever seen before.  If I had not seen the flowers with my own eyes, I would have never suspected the flower was real.  In fact, even looking at it, I had to reach out and touch it to make sure it was actually real.  Sources tell me this is called a passion flower.

As I thought about this unusual flower, I began to ponder the mind of Creator who would fill His world with all sorts of plants, flowers and even creatures.  When I think of how many different flowers I know, more than I can name, then I think of how many exist that I don't have any idea about, I am simply astounded at the magnitude of our Lord.

Not only that He can create so many different types and varieties of flowers, but that He would.  Why would He do this?  I think the answer is simple.  For our pleasure.  He wants us to enjoy them, to look at them, to smell them, to touch them and to enjoy these expressions of Him.  In some way, every petal of every flower shouts out the truth of the Lord Jesus, only our blinded eyes cannot see.

One day though, we will see the world with glorified eyes, and we will be astounded at the beauty that is hidden from us now.  Not beauty seen with the eyes or smelled with the nose, but beauty beheld with the spirit as the Holy Spirit reveals to us the truth of our Savior throughout His Creation.

"And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, 

and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, 

Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, 

be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. 
And the four beasts said, Amen. 

And the four and twenty elders fell down 

and worshipped Him that liveth for ever and ever. "  

Revelation 5:13,14