The Beauty of God for the Bored, the Worried, and the Depressed

To be free from the slavery of sin, we must come alive to God's glory in Christ, our only hope.

Theologian Jonathan Edwards was a master at this subject. He found God's glory and beauty in every corner of Scripture and centered his understanding of the Christian life on that.

The classic image of Edwards as a hellfire-pointing preacher, holding sinners on the edge of the abyss of God's fiery wrath, does not give a balanced picture of his ministry. Although he is best known for scaring people with God's wrath, in fact he spent much more time drawing people to heaven by proclaiming the beauty of God in the gospel. As Dane Orlund writes in his book "«Edwards on the Christian Life: Living for God's Beauty».

This unquenchable desire for God’s beauty fuels the fire of the Christian life. Every day we pray for the same thing: «to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord» (Ps. 27:4). And we testify together: «For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens (the universe). Glory and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary» (Ps. 95:5–6).

We need God's beauty.

But what does God’s glory have to do with my daily life—in my worries, temptations, boredom, and spiritual dryness? I recently sat down to talk with Dane Orlund, director of Bible publishing at Crossway.

Beauty and concern

First, God's beauty calms our troubled and anxious hearts.

«The beauty of God’s tender mercy calms me, allows me to breathe again,» Dane shared. «It slows the turbulent rush of my heart. In my life of uncertainty as a moral being, in all my experiences of anxiety, He is the steadfast and gentle Father who has adopted and justified me. Edwards really felt this. Especially when you read his sermons or his letters, you get a special aroma. He really felt safe, loved, and at peace with God and His tender care as a Father.».

Beauty and temptations

Second, God’s beauty fills our hearts with feelings that are essential if we are to successfully face the enemies of sin and temptation. «The world tells me that selfish pleasure in lust is where true pleasure is,» Dane noted. Instead, «Edwards writes throughout about quietly enjoying the beauty of God and communing with Him in the Son, who is a powerful and vibrant friend to sinners like me. To use a word Edwards loved so much, enjoying God makes us happy.».

One of the key battles of the Christian life is to discover the true ugliness of sin and realize its destructiveness. «Sin is the allure of that which is going to kill you,» Dane said. «I can’t help but jump into the water of sin and run into the rocks of judgment, hell, and death. I don’t have the willpower to stop. I can’t stop. I need a higher beauty, a more compelling beauty. I will do only what I love, and I will remain that way forever. I can’t function any other way. I have a thirst for beauty that must be quenched, no matter what.».

We all need it. «The sixty-year-old man who leaves his wife for a younger woman, the teenager who watches pornography, the banker who checks his personal accounts every hour, the pastor who thrives on the approval of his congregation—they all take a doll, put makeup on it, treat it like a wife, and expect it to love them like a wife, while the real person in the next room is trying to love them for real.».

Beauty and boredom

Just as God's beauty counteracts our anxieties and temptations, it also combats the spiritual dangers of our boredom.

«"Sin is the allure of what is going to kill you.".

A year ago, ESPN reported on the tragic story of Christopher Lane, a college baseball player who was running down the street in Duncan, Oklahoma. Three teenagers drove up to him in a car and shot him in the back, senselessly killing the athlete. When the teens were later arrested and questioned about their actions, they said they did it because they were "bored.".

As Martin Lloyd-Jones said, «Sin is always, in some sense, a life of boredom.» «That’s where sin leads us,» Dane explains. «Among other reasons, hell is hell because it’s so boring.» Yes, boring, because hell is an eternal stay in self-centeredness, blind to all external beauty, dissatisfied within, and miserable without.

But on the other hand, "Holiness is fun," Dane says, a little cautiously. "Can I say that? Holiness is playful. It's clean. It's bright—not dark—because we've been swept up in the love of the Trinity. We've been justified and ratified. We've become human again.".

This is a very counterintuitive idea of holiness. «What is the first thing that comes to mind when we see the word “holiness”?» Dane asks. «Severity. Coldness. A grimace. A clenched jaw. In one of his early sermons, Edwards says, “Holiness is the most beautiful, the most charming thing. People tend to think of holiness from childhood as if it were a sad, gloomy, sour thing.”» But Edwards argues that there is nothing but sweetness and striking beauty in holiness. Sin is mud and dirt. Holiness is sweetness, beauty, joy, peace, tranquility. It corrects me. Holiness is calming. It is the only way I can truly enjoy my life, because I am not satisfied with the world’s counterfeit offers of happiness. Holiness is quietly captivating. Where else would you want to live if not in the brightness of holiness?»

Beauty and eternity

True joy is not measured by escaping boredom through entertainment. That won’t work, and for good reason. «The Christian life cannot function properly without joy,» Dane emphasizes. «But that doesn’t mean you need to watch more Letterman. Laughter is not a reliable indicator of joy.» Drain Netflix and Hulu of all their sitcoms, and your greatest joy will remain buried in a field that isn’t yours.

But Dane is no ascetic. In his book, he writes, «The formula for joy is not God «and» [space], but God «in» [space]» (p. 77). Later, he explains, «True joy comes not from God and work, family, sex, friends, food, recreation, driving, buying a house, reading a book, drinking coffee—but from God in these things… Every taste of beauty in this world, from the roar of waterfalls to the chirping of birds, from the richness of true friendship to the ecstasy of sexual experience, is a drop in the ocean of divine beauty. Every pleasure is an arrow pointing back to Him. Joy comes from Him and, ultimately, only in Him» (p. 79).

In our conversation, Dane even noted, «It may sound cold and heartless, but Edwards said that when our loved ones die, we have no reason to be sad, because we will experience all the things we loved about our loved ones forever in heaven in Christ. Christ himself sums up all other joys. If you have Christ, you have all joy.».

Dane is not suggesting that there will be no sweet reunions with friends and family in heaven. He is saying that even in those reunions, what makes them joyful is not the loved one plus God, but the significant encounter in the loved one with the beauty of God that is revealed through them.

Beauty and depression

But all this talk of beauty doesn’t immunize Christians from sadness and depression. At the end of my conversation with Dane, I asked what advice he would give to readers who are currently feeling down, unable to see God’s beauty, and experiencing a period of spiritual drought. What would Pastor Edwards say to them?

Dane offered six tips:

• You're not crazy. So relax. We all go through this from time to time.
• Your sluggish, immobile state wouldn't bother Edwards as much as it bothers you. And it bothers you because you're asking the question. In other words, Edwards had a deep understanding of regeneration and the new birth. He knew that an unregenerate heart wouldn't be bothered (and probably wouldn't be reading this interview).
• God's judgment on your life is not strengthened by the intensity or diminished by the lack of intensity of your enjoyment of God's beauty. In fact, part of God's beauty is that His fatherly care and love for you are not dependent on your experience of that beauty.
• If you feel dry and barren because you live in sin, and you know it, then what do you expect from your life?
• If you are in Christ, one day you will look back on this dry, barren, difficult life and see how the whole sum of the pain in this world (in which we live and which sometimes almost breaks us) will be intertwined and touched, and will actually become part of our ultimate brightness, majesty, and glory. So hold on.
• Stay in the Psalms. They are in the Bible to give dry and barren human beings something to say to God, and to give them renewed sanity when, left alone, all they want to do is crawl back into bed under the covers, or get drunk, or end their lives, because the pain of life is so great.