Beauty and Reality

There is quite a difference between a picture drawn or painted by an artist and its real?life counterpart. I am not talking about paintings by Picasso or Dali and other artists of their class. Their art is like a simile in speech; it approaches the real thing (sometimes), but often leaves the “commoner’s” imagination unfulfilled. Being one of the bourgeoisie or middle class, I prefer down?to?earth artists like Norman Rockwell and his peers who have a metaphoric (my term) approach to art. They make an apple an apple or a woman a woman and not some disjointed alien from outer space with body parts scattered all over the painting.

If the artist is good enough, he can make a picture seem very real. If it’s a tree, the viewer can imagine, from the realism infused into the picture, the side of the tree that isn’t shown. He knows it is there because it is always there in real life. If it is an outstanding portrait, the viewer can see a glint of awareness in the eyes and can almost reach out and touch the real person. A sculpture can have an even more realistic effect.

But, as good as they may be, these things are not real. They are beautiful and have a wondrous touch of reality – but they are not the genuine item they copy so well. They are, after all, only incredibly skillful paint strokes on a canvas or sketches on a paper. Or, if they are sculpture, they result from the dexterous work of the sculptor who has the advantage of working in a three?dimensional art form, which gives even more life to the inanimate object.

The portrait is unable to speak or love or comfort. The sculpture can neither see nor hear nor speak. Both possess unbelievably lifelike semblances of human body parts portrayed in exceptionally realistic manner, but they don’t function. They make beautiful art and satisfy the aesthetic side of the viewer, but they are useless in a practical sense, not having the power to do, to effect, to accomplish. In other words, they can’t make a real difference in a heart or in a life.

A portrait or a statue cannot raise a prayer nor can it console one who is deeply grieved. A life-like work of art is unable to worship a God or bring the Gospel to a sinner. For that matter, such things have not the least awareness, no cognizance of God nor of His wonderful love. They know nothing at all. The slighting remark, “beautiful but dumb,” is remarkably appropriate in this instance.

It is obvious that appearance and near?realism are not enough. Beauty alone may please the senses, but it is not enough in a demanding world of in-your-face reality. Beauty is not enough in the religious world where there are many beautiful forms in worship, edifices of worship, groups of worshipers (congregations), prayers and individual worshipers. But what do these lovely-looking items actually do of themselves?

Beauty is woefully inadequate. Attractiveness falls far short of what God wants and what the world of PEOPLE needs. There are two sources making demands on us who call ourselves Christian. First, there is a God who demands REAL beauty in our living, and second, there is a world full of individuals who have staggering needs both in the physical and the spiritual realm. A truly beautiful life will address both the demands of God and the needs of God’s creatures.

We need to mature and reject the notion so widely held that appearance is the sum total of existence. Outward appearance is like the beautiful painting that delights the eye but has no practical use. God is a God of realism and practicality despite our ideas to the contrary. He wants action; He wants profitable service; He wants progress and improvement in our service and our likeness to Him.

Paul warns of “Having a form of godliness [the beauty of appearance], but denying the power thereof…” He urges us, “from such turn away.” (2 Tim 3:5)

Rev 3:17 gives us this warning: “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing [the beauty of appearance]; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked [the harsh reality]…”

There is certainly a vast difference between the picture we draw of our own worth and accomplishments, and the ruthless reality of truth. Even we who are filled with the Spirit have a tendency to see ourselves in our own rosy light and not in the cutting glare of the reality found in the Word of God. Most of us don’t do it deliberately; it’s only that we want so much to be what God wants us to be that we fudge a little. If God wants perfection, we will give Him – and ourselves – the perfection He and we both want so avidly. In our minds we blur our imperfections so that they gradually metamorphose into good traits. I know. I have done it occasionally until I came back to reality and realized there is much work to be done before the beauty of my aspirations becomes a completed thing of beauty according to the Word of God.

In this discourse I have tried to show the need for more than beauty. We need real?life quality, and we do not have the full reality yet. But there is good news. God in His grace and mercy has given us both beauty and reality before we have literally attained the full reality. We don’t have to wait for the final work of perfection and beauty to be accomplished in our lives. If we are fully yielded to God and have the works necessary for a living faith, our lives at this very moment are breathing, pulsing works of art to Him. Reality as we know it may say it is not so, but God’s own reality makes it so, and who can argue with the Judge of all as to what is real?

Without boasting I can say that God has truly made something beautiful out of my life, and it is possible only by my LIVING faith in Him.

“For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.” (2 Cor 8:12)

If you too are a believer, your life and mine are both undeniable beautiful works of art created by the Master Artist. He has breathed His own life into these works of art and they have come vibrantly alive.