beauty Archives - Margaret Feinberg

21 Days of Wonder: Creation

Margaret — January 19, 2013 — 11 Comments

21 Days of Wonder CREATION

Creation beckons us to open our eyes to the wonders of God. Look for a place outside where all you can see is God’s creation. If you’re in an urban area, consider visiting a park and lying down under a tree where all you can see are its branches and slivers of sky above. Spend fifteen minutes simply sitting or resting in that place. Pay attention to the details—the textures, the colors, the intricate care with which God formed creation. Allow yourself to spontaneously respond to God in thanks, and worship—celebrating the wonders of creation all around. Continue Reading…

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21 Days of Wonder: Beauty

Margaret — January 15, 2013 — 9 Comments

21 Days of Wonder BEAUTY

Throughout the day, look for wonder through a camera lens. Snap a picture on your phone or break out your camera to capture an image of God’s beauty, grace, love, peace, and joy. When you start looking, you may find examples all around you! Let’s encourage each other with God’s beauty. So, upload your photo and share—tweet, post, pin or blog. And make sure to include #LIVEWONDERSTRUCK so we can find you! Continue Reading…

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What Do You Love About Jesus?

Margaret — June 20, 2012 — 14 Comments

My friend Jay once asked me an unforgettable question, “What do you love about Jesus?”

I knew my answer right away. For those of you reading along with me in The Organic God, you’ll already know my answer.

The thing that I love about Jesus is his beauty. I love the way he transforms people’s lives by exposing a deeper side of their being while revealing God’s great love for them. To me, that holds incredible beauty.

In Psalm 27:4, the Psalmist longs to gaze upon God’s incredible beauty. He requests to dwell in the Lord’s house forever to be in close proximity to God’s beauty. Throughout our lives, we are given glimpses of God’s beauty in so many forms. Apart from God-we could never know:

The beauty of God’s redemption at work in a person’s life.

The beauty of a deep friendship spanning the years.

The beauty of experiencing God’s unconditional love.

I recently received an email from a reader who commented on what he finds beautiful about Jesus. He wrote:

“I love Jesus because He’s the real deal! He’s my hero. He’s everything I want to be and more. He loved me, a punk kid from L.A. – Lower Akron (Ohio) and welcomed me into His family. He still loves my unworthy, rascal soul.

There just are not words to explain what He means to me, but you have approached it in your book…’big hearted, breathtakingly beautiful, amazingly wise, wildly infallible, outrageously generous, abundantly kind, and deeply mysterious.’ I, like you, am so very thankful I don’t completely understand Him….as I feel if I could, with my fallible mind, I couldn’t worship Him as my Lord, Savior, and Creator.”

When we don’t spend time with the beautiful God, we may become distracted by substitutions the world calls beautiful. But these glamorous replacements will never satisfy. God, in his beauty and love, invites us to taste something deeper. He knows whatever we fix our eyes on will set our standards. And our beautiful breathtaking God invites us to be captivated by him.

So let me ask you: What do you love about Jesus?

**Photo courtesy of: here.

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Lent is wrapping up and so is my journey through the Gospel of John. I hope you enjoyed pursuing Christ through these 40 days of Lent- I know my eyes have refocused on the beauty revealed in God’s Word.

When I traveled to Israel years ago, I visited a garden tomb.* Surrounded by beautiful flowers, there was a long rock wall and a large opening. At the base of the wall was a groove in the stone where a large rock could roll over the opening. Stepping inside the tomb, I was struck by the fact no one was there.

I know this sounds simplistic and obvious, but until I saw with my own eyes, I never comprehended the profound beauty of an empty tomb. I remember taking my hand and pressing it up against the cold rock and thinking, “This is what the resurrection looks like, embodied in an empty tomb.”

In John 20, Mary Magdalene first sees the vacant burial site. She is so desperate to find the missing body that the two angels sitting in the tomb don’t phase her. And then a man approaches her in the garden. This is the moment when I can’t help but love Mary Magdalene. She looks at this guy who bears a strange resemblance to someone else she knows but can’t quite place a finger on it. She decides: never seen this guy before. He must be the gardener.

I love this detail. The very Son of God, the Son of the one who created the skies, formed the mountains, and unleashed the solar system splashed with spectacular beauty is now mistaken for a gardener.

John goes on to describe the disciples hiding together when Jesus comes in and stands before them and announces, “Peace be with you!” He shows the disciples the scars in his hands and side. But one of the disciples, Thomas, isn’t there. When Thomas catches wind that he missed the party he still doesn’t believe.

Eight days later, Jesus appears again in the midst of the disciples, and offers the same greeting. Peace be with you. Then he zeroes in on Thomas, inviting him to touch the scars.

The final chapters of the Gospel of John demonstrate how God pursues us-both individually and as a community of believers. John didn’t leave out the story of Jesus revealing himself to Mary, visiting and revisiting the disciples, and reaching out to Thomas, who’s struggling to believe by mistake.

These chapters share what a transformed relationship with the resurrected Christ looks like for followers of Jesus. He pursues them. After the resurrection, Jesus specifically pursues Mary in the garden. He pursues his disciples. He pursues Thomas despite his doubts. And in their stories we’re reminded of the beauty in the greatest story of all: God is pursuing you and he is pursuing me.

What does this glorious chase look like in your life? Is God seeking you through the lyrics of a song? Through a soft beckoning to sit with him during the silence of a sunrise? Through the tender hug of a loved one? We may be tempted to brush him off as if he were the gardener, but the Creator of the stars will continue to persevere after us in a beautiful pursuit.

If you are interested in going through a study of John consider Pursuing God’s Beauty: Stories from the Gospel of John. To purchase, click here.

*Tradition also suggests there is another possible spot for Christ’s tomb: the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. For more information click here.

**Photo courtesy of here

How are you being pursued by God lately?

Lent Week 7: The Beauty Before the Betrayal

Margaret — April 4, 2012 — 2 Comments

A friend told me about the party. I couldn’t wait. The invitation arrived in my inbox via evite. If you’ve never received one, an evite is an invitation sent through email with one difference: you can see the guest list. As I scoured those invited, I felt my stomach drop.

She was going.

She and I simply had different values, different ways of looking at life. But those differences had been accentuated in the last few months. Our points of disagreement had grown stronger, and I found myself withdrawing from any signs of a cordial relationship.

I’ve been moving through the Gospel of John for Lent, Lent but I couldn’t help but sit in John 13 a bit longer. Only a couple verses are dedicated to the breaking of bread and the passing of the cup, but the picture is still the same:

Between bouts of rowdy laughter and salty observations on life, a silence falls over those gathered around a table. All eyes on the rabbi, Jesus looks down at the dimpled dough and pushes his thumbs through the bread, tearing it apart. As the last disciple brushes the crumbs from his chin, he picks up a cup of wine and shares this as well. Though the disciples have proven themselves weak and wobbly, wavering at almost every turn, Jesus doesn’t exclude anyone from this moment. Even Judas.

In ancient culture, eating with someone wasn’t just about meeting physical needs but a spiritual act that demonstrated and declared a spiritual relationship. The act of sipping wine, swallowing bread, the chewing and ingesting becomes a beautiful sacrament, a holy moment in time when if we strain our eyes and ears we can sense the heartbeat of God in relationships. I’m amazed Jesus still invited Judas into his inner circle, inviting him into a relationship despite knowing a betrayal was imminent.

More often than I’d like to admit, I try to identify and exclude anyone who I perceive (or misconstrue) as opposition in my life. I pull back. Skirt the outside of the room. Dodge the emails. Ignore the text messages. Even cringe when the person’s name is listed on an evite.

And yet, here is Jesus, engaging with Judas in an act of friendship. Did his heart twinge as he handed him the cup? Was there a small part of him that wanted to take back the bread?

What if we were to be more intentional in relationship to others who irk us? What if I were to answer the text message as soon as I can with an extra smile emoticon? What if I ask if there’s anything I could do anything to make their day better? What if I were to accept the evite and go? Perhaps a new friend, a new relationship, is waiting to be discovered. Maybe in this beautiful act of sipping wine and swallowing bread we can catch a glimmer of the heartbeat of God.

Anyone interested in diving into John’s Gospel with me may enjoy Pursuing God’s Beauty: Stories from the Gospel of John. To purchase, click here.

**Photo courtesy of here