As I thought about that, I remembered some poppies I'd photographed recently at the Mobile Botanical Gardens (in Alabama). The poppies were part of a much larger, postcard-pretty scene, and when I looked more closely at them, I was awed by their beauty and spent more time photographing them than I did the larger landscape.
Even though not all landscapes are pretty, I can usually find something that is beautiful--if I take a closer look. For example, when we recently had a new roof put on the house where my husband had grown up, a "roll-off" dumpster was brought in so that the roofers could toss all the old shingles, nails, and other debris into it. It was old and discolored and rusty and had several holes. I photographed it from a distance and then walked over for a closer look at its surface. The beautiful colors and the varied textures and patterns I found on that badly mistreated, badly scarred dumpster amazed me! Had I not taken a closer look, I'd have continued to think the dumpster was quite ugly.
That experience set me to thinking about how the larger view we have of some people and/or circumstances leads us to think they, too, are very ugly. We do not see anything appealing about them. But if we take the time and make the effort to move in a bit closer, chances are good that we'll find something to admire about them.
Although we tend to form opinions about others based on outward appearance, God looks beyond the exterior and sees what each of us is like on the inside. Obviously, He's far more interested in our "intimate landscape" than in the larger landscape of our lives.
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God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.
1 Samuel 16:7
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