The Beauty and Grace of God
My sister and I have send each other photographs of sunsets. These sunsets are never the same twice and possess an overflowing beauty. We are blessed to live in places where the sunsets are quite often spectacular. She now lives on the Pacific coast of Mexico, and I in the mountains of California. This indescribable beauty fills us with peace and, for an instant, inner joy that inspires hope. It’s a beauty that, for a moment, makes us reflect on the fact that there is much more than just ourselves and our circumstances. Its grandeur reminds us that even though my sister and I are far apart, the sky’s expanse connects us.
Perhaps we are so captivated by sunsets because, until the 90s, we lived in the great Mexico City. That incredible, vibrant, and chaotic city was, back then, submerged under a brown cloud caused by dense pollution, which was made worse by the so-called “thermal inversion”. This happens when cold air pushes down gases and particles, compressing the sky into a dense atmosphere that conceals any sign of blue sky. Colorful sunsets were the stuff of fiction, as were deep blue skies and black nights filled with countless stars. Our skies were more comparable to a thick, dense cup of hot cocoa. We could only admire beautiful sunsets occasionally when we left the city or bought badly printed, oversaturated postcards or calendars that looked more fake than three-dollar bills. We knew beautiful sunsets existed, but they were not part of our reality.
I still remember when I moved to Ensenada, Baja California. It was unbelievable to me that sharp colors, clear skies, and sunsets so intense even existed! I felt as though I had stepped into one of those postcards. A few years later, my sister also moved to Baja California. And that’s where our admiration for sunsets—and indeed, for all the beauty of creation—began.
Every time we admire a sunset, we can only acknowledge that God is the Artist par excellence, and the world is where He has expressed Himself with all majesty and glory. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says:
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (NIV)
Just as sunsets are hidden from our sight by pollution, the beauty, goodness, and grace of God can be hidden from us when we are under circumstances that cover the eyes of our souls. One only needs to read the news to encounter this brown cloak of evil. Receiving news of an illness, losing a job, or being bullied by school or work colleagues—all this becomes the pollution that prevents us from seeing the grace of God.
How can I see the goodness of God and experience the beauty of His Grace when everything around me is oppressive?
The answer to experiencing Grace under the oppressive cloak lies in changing our point of view—in how we choose to see. The truth is that Grace is not a fleeting surprise but a constant reality that is often veiled. The question, “how to see?” propels us into action. This action causes our surroundings to change through our attitude, our smile, and our deeds. It is a constant action to redirect our thoughts to the truth and not to focus on the cloud of despair.
We cannot always control the cloud of evil that hovers over the world, but we can control the humility with which we observe. If God, as Ecclesiastes says, "made everything beautiful in its time," then that beauty already exists; it is complete, despite our limited comprehension. Seeing God, therefore, is an act of personal and spiritual decontamination: it is the daily decision to reject the "thick gruel" of hopelessness and to clean the windows of the soul to finally let the light pass through. And when we do, we discover that the colors of His Grace were never a fake postcard, but the living promise that beauty always triumphs over gray—that the thick gray cloud is temporary. It is a reminder that we must intentionally focus our gaze of our thoughts, just as the Apostle Paul expresses:
"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." (Philippians 4:8 NIV)