I hope that Someday I'll see without these Frames.

A couple of weeks ago, I started reading John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, as seen by angst-y post previous about a week back. Now, to ensure you that I am not just a "wrathful God" person, there have been marvelous thoughts in my head on eternity as of late.

Calvin begins Book 1 by explaining that we know ourselves by our knowledge of God. The two are "mutually connected." He then goes into great detail explaining natural revelation of God and special revelation of God that would put our dear friend Tony Evans to shame for his atrocity written a few years back. The artist/creative side in me has always been amazed at God's natural revelation to us. Calvin expressed it most eloquently in 1.5.1 by saying, "Yet, in the first place, wherever you cast your eyes, there is no spot in the universe wherein you cannot discern at least some sparks of his glory. You cannot in one glance survey this most vast and beautiful system of the universe, in its wide expanse, without being completely overwhelmed by the boundless force of its brightness." Boundless force of its brightness - what a fantastic thought!

Now, we recently moved to New England, and I have not been disappointed in the least with the bold claim that one must see New England in the Fall in order to really understand and grasp the purpose of this season. The colors, the air, the simple breeze that blows through and makes you begin to wonder... there is a boundless force of brightness occurring. I love it, every single second. The most wonderful aspect of all of this is that I can truly enjoy this beautiful brightness because it points me to the Creator. He is in charge of the workings of the trees, so that they change their color and become a vast array of chromatic display that painters can only hope to capture one day with their brush. He has created the idea of "crispness," so that when the air blows through my hair, a sense of happiness and longing for something more overwhelms me.

I began to wonder as I read through Calvin, if I enjoy Fall and New England's version of the season this much with my poor eyesight and confined word expression of it now, how much more amazing will eternity be? I sit and marvel at what the Creator has done here, in this fallen world, and He is up there laughing because He knows that my mind will be blown when I meet Him in eternity. This is the wonderful thing about God - He has created each one of us with amazing gifts and talents and desires, and we get a taste of it here in this earth, but the real Joy will be when we see without these frames, and He shows us All of Himself. God is holding back here. This thought makes me weep, because I am completely blown away here by the beauty of nature. Oh, how SMALL my mind is and how AMAZING our God was, is and will be!