I enjoy mystery stories, especially Sherlock Holmes. Recently I was reading “The Naval Treaty” and ran across one of the few places that the great detective talked about religion.  

 “Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”

Holmes found the beauty of a flower as an indication of a special gift of a higher power. Of course, a botanist would have pointed out that the purpose of the smell and color of flowers is to attract insects for pollination, but there is something is seeing natural beauty as a sign of God’s benevolence.

Personally, I think the human soul needs some beauty or it becomes twisted. The beauty may be in things we see or smell as in a rose, but it may also be in sound or taste touch. There is also a beauty that goes beyond physical attributes. It may lie in a person’s character. 1 Peter 3:4 says that a person’s beauty, “should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.”

I hope you find something beautiful that points you to God today.

Read Ecclesiastes 3:11 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne