(Joni sings)
Loved with everlasting love,
Led by grace that love to know;
Gracious Spirit from above,
Thou hast taught me it is so!
Oh, this full and perfect peace!
Oh, this transport all divine!
In a love that cannot cease,
I am His, and He is mine.
Do I love singing that hymn! I hope you sang along with me if you know it. I love singing that hymn whenever I come across something beautiful. When I do, I always see God in it. And when you see God in something, that something always seems bigger and more beautiful than before. You know how it is. Before you were a Christian, sure, you enjoyed a sunset or a colorful garden of spring flowers, but after you came to Christ, every sunset, every vase full of daisies or impatients blooming by the front door... you’ve just got to stop and look at everything through the eyes of Christ.
(Joni sings)
Heav’n above is softer blue,
Earth around is sweeter green!
Something lives in ev’ry hue
Christ-less eyes have never seen.
Just like that, isn’t it? Because when you see His creative hand in that sunset or in those flowers or whatever, the joy is bigger, the beauty is brighter, the moment is just more... lovely.
This happens to me on lots of days after work when I head to the bedroom to take off my jacket. In those few moments when the day is waning... sometime when the sun is low, right before dinner, I carve out... I make myself sit by the bay window in the bedroom and I enjoy a few long moments of absolute quiet, looking out over the back yard fence to the distant Northridge mountains. Invariably... there are almost always a pair of mourning doves, the color of pink mauve — almost blending into the southern California early evening sky. To watch them perch utterly still on that fence — maybe cocking a head or ruffling a wing — is, to me, the picture of peace and repose. That they stay so long, amazes me. The birds seem to be a part of that, “Day is done, gone the sun...” sort of thing. I always leave the room refreshed.
It’s refreshing because I have met God in that moment. Like the hymn says, something lives in every hue, every scene, that eyes touched by Christ can see.
(Joni sings)
Birds with gladder songs o’erflow,
Flow’rs with deeper beauties shine,
Since I know, as now I know,
I am His, and He is mine.
That’s something to sing about today, when day is done.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
© Joni and Friends