Now Playing: Felix Mendelssohn, "Violin Concerto in E Minor - Allegro Appassionato - Andante."

The world this evening was really beautiful. Clear, cool skies, and the north breeze had died down so that the air was perfectly still. Scents hung on it. We walked down a long arcade under locust trees, their pendent white flowers heavy overhead, filling the air with scent. In the meadow above the lake, Indian paintbrush was coming up among blue-eyed grass, scarlet against vivid green and purple, like erupting fireworks.

Down the path by the lake, masses of honeysuckle were flowering under cottonwood trees. Their smell was purely sweet, naked, overpowering. A long water moccasin whipped out of the creek and up the bank as we crossed the bridge. In the meadow again, trumpet vine crowning sumac made the bushes blaze as red again as they were last fall.

Spring, this spring, has a beauty that attacks the mind. Beds and beds of purple and white irises bloomed in green dusk. A miniature Versailles, petals fountained from upright stems. The tops of the trees were still sunlit, yellow-green against pale blue sky, slashed with a male cardinal’s line of flight.

In these days I catch my breath when I remember that this world was made for us in Christ. Yes, for the glory of God. Yes, to display His creative power. But not without observers and participants. We talked last week about Psalm 8 and the incredible truth that God made the world as a home for us--He displays His glory here in a unique way, uniquely suited to be enjoyed and praised by humans.

I cannot believe that the beauty in this world is a product of evolution, that my visceral response to a green field full of flowers is a distilled form of some primordial grazing instinct. Humanity depends so much on our ability to create and appreciate art when we see it, and we see it every moment as we are surrounded by the greatest piece of performance art ever made.

Praise God that He is a God of pleasure, rhythm, beauty, fruitfulness, and peace.