I think we all want the beautiful things to stay.

We are an alien to humanity if we don't.

It hurts us when we see beauty leave our lives, move on, or get ripped away from us.

One thing that we can get confused, and we tend to do a lot is identify beautiful with God. We see something as beautiful and we make it equivalent to God.

God is the only one who stays. I've noticed how we get hurt by beautiful just as often as ugly. The beautiful things draw us in by pleasure whereas the ugly draw us in with sorrow. And face it, pleasure has always been more desirable.

Something that we often do is associate beautiful situations, circumstances, people, positions, etc. with God and when they leave or change faces, we all of a sudden find ourselves in a difficult place with the Lord. We don't want to trust Him anymore or we feel our whole perception of God has changed. Which is definitely not true. We know God never changes, but yet we encounter times where we question if He has.

Have we somewhere along this road agreed to look at the beautiful things as if they are God Himself? Yet, the beautiful, great things of this earth are fleeting and are destined to be done away with now or later. So why would we replace an eternal, truly-loving God with beautiful things that at the end of the day, the year, the century are non-existing or unsatisfactory?

I've seen it happen SO often in my own life. Whether it is an experience that begins great and gets pulled out from under me, a relationship that is oh-so-wonderful that dies quicker than I ever thought, a community that fades when the school year closes, an outfit that gets one good wear and is horribly ruined... Seriously, I was really excited to at least wear you for the remainder of the season. These things are from my experience. And I know yours are similar and different, but we all experience things that are beautiful and valuable at one point and when they end it can feel like our whole life has taken a turn for the worst.

But fam, God doesn't want to be associated with the good of this world in a way that takes over His true state. And His true state keeps us at perfect peace, in harmony with others, full of love and persistent in seeking truth.

We have to allow the Holy Spirit to invade our thinking so that who God is to us does not become distant from who He actually is, who He eternally is!

The way we combat our perspective (that seems to change everyday) is to have a humble heart, a teachable heart. That throughout all circumstances, good and bad, we see the true Jesus within them.

I think the amazing thing about God is that He already knows humans have our own perspectives to work through, learn through, and walk through. And He hasn't given up on us.

But is this alteration something that we want to daily experience?

Do we want the beautiful things in this world or what God has been displaying throughout all of time for us?

He is beauty in Himself and He is the one who can properly show us how to know the beautiful things of this world but not allow them to rule us, change us, identify us, persuade us, or even cause us to let go of our convictions for future experiences.

Being humble and honest is where we begin to make the shift from not the bad, but from beautiful to Heavenly.

We can do this. It'll be good.