I stepped out my front door this morning and stepped into a veritable work of art. I stepped out for my morning walk and stepped into God’s own gallery.

The sun was just beginning to peer over the eastern horizon, its earliest light warm and brilliant gold. The clouds that stretched across the sky faded from east to west, from thick to thin, from heavy to light. Each cloud caught the golden rays and reflected them in a fiery swirl of red, orange, and yellow. God himself had mixed up a pastel palette, a work of art that was not quite realistic and not quite abstract. It was, though, absolutely breathtaking. “Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee / How great Thou art.”
I stood for a moment and soaked in the scene. I had an urge to wake Aileen and to tell her to step outside with me, for surely such beauty is best shared. I had an urge to grab my camera and race down to the shore of Lake Ontario, for surely such beauty is best captured. But I knew that the best beauty of a sunrise lasts for only a few moments and that by the time I woke Aileen and led her outside, the light would already be fading. And I knew that the best beauty of a sunrise cannot be captured by camera and lens, for even the most high-quality of sensors can only capture a small slice of the scene and only a small portion of the spectrum. And so I stood and enjoyed the beauty for the brief moments it existed, for the brief moments before the sun’s light cooled from gold to white, before it no longer reflected off the clouds, before dawn became day.
So many of life’s pleasures are as fleeting as a sunrise. Yesterday Aileen looked wistfully over her garden and said, “It is already past its peak.” What was planted at the end of May has already given us the best of its beauty even though the calendar shows only August. The flowers that bloomed bright yellow and pure white and brilliant purple have faded and fallen. The leaves that grew vivid and green have become ragged and discolored. Caterpillars have chewed, rabbits have nibbled, sun has scorched. Sunrises, gardens, and so much else all tell the same tale: Time is no friend to beauty.
Yet as we live with opened eyes, we will see that we are most truly never without beauty, if only we will accept its fleeting nature, if only we will cease lamenting the past and look to the present. The sun that rose will set and there will be fresh delights to behold in the evening sky. Even as the wonders of plants and flowers begin to fade, the trees high above the garden will explode with their brilliant fall colors. Snow will fall and coat the ground in a clean and dazzling white. 
We are never without beauty in this world—never without displays of splendor. We are never without beauty because God’s divine fingerprints are impressed on all he has made. We are never without beauty because we live in a world carefully crafted by the one who is himself beautiful, who is himself Beauty.

I’m grateful to TGC for sponsoring the blog this week with Are You Keeping Track of Your Church’s Culture?.

There are some interesting books listed in today’s Kindle deals.
(Yesterday on the blog: World Religions in Seven Sentences)
Our Infertility and God’s Foreknowledge
“There are over one billion websites on the internet, yet some days it can feel as though they contain none of the information we want to know. Approximately four million new book titles are released each year, yet too often they tell us everything we don’t want to know. At least 350,000 new tweets are published every minute, and for what? Even with all this information at our fingertips, we still long for more—especially in times of suffering.”
Could It Be Time for a Pastoral Transition?
Benjamin considers times when it may be right for a pastoral transition.
Don’t think about elephants!
“I want you to not think about elephants. Whatever you do, I don’t want the thought of an elephant to enter your mind. Don’t think about their size or their ears or their trunks. How are you going? What are you thinking about right now? I think I can guess!” Simon means to prove something with this.
Truth to Cling to When Nothing Makes Sense
“Though there have been many precious years of walking with my Savior, the past several years has shaken my confidence as the road has continued to be dark, long, and painful. Though God has been faithful in so many ways (far more than we can probably see) I have been increasingly perplexed and unsettled by his ways.” You may identify with Sarah in this.
Such Were Some of You
Justin reflects on one of the most unexpectedly encouraging verses in the Bible.
Don’t Begin With the Needs of Your People
“I used to begin with the needs of people and then go to Scripture. I figured that the place to begin as a preacher is with the needs of the people in front of me.” Darryl explains what changed and why.
Flashback: Love Is a Risky Business
God takes no risk in his love, because he knows everything about me. He knows all I have done, all I am doing, all I ever will do. He will never receive new knowledge of me that may cause him to question his determination to call me his friend. And for that reason, no relationship I have will ever be more secure than my relationship with him.

We tend to think that the default destiny of all people is heaven, and hell is reserved for the particularly wicked. But in truth our default destiny is hell, and heaven is reserved for those who have the honesty to admit it and look to Christ. —Dane Ortlund 

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you today.

Today’s Kindle deals include another long list. This is a great time to stock up on books for your Kindle and do some Christmas shopping. Separate from that list, pre-Black Friday Kindle deals can be found at this page and print book deals from a variety of booksellers at this page.

Wyatt Graham has written a pair of articles about John Mark Comer. The one I’ve linked above is longer and does a deep dive into Comer’s concerning view of God. The second (here) is shorter and is more of a review of Practicing the Way.

Should Christians pray the imprecatory Psalms or other imprecatory prayers today? Many scholars say “no” (and I’m generally in agreement with them), but Bryan Hart takes and defends the opposite view.

Trevin Wax reminds us of the wonder that no good deed we’ve ever done will ultimately remain hidden or be forgotten by God.

Will we see God in eternity? John Piper answers the question in this edition of Ask Pastor John. “There you have both sides of the issue. And the solution to this seeming inconsistency lies in the fact that the word see, as we all know, has several different uses. And if you look at all the texts, you see that there are two different senses in which his people can see God and two senses in which they cannot see God.”

“The children of Israel had short memories of God’s faithfulness and care just after the miraculous parting of the Red Sea and their rescue from the Egyptian army. Their gratitude soon switched to complaints that there was no food, and then they didn’t like the manna the Lord sent. This was just the beginning of their grumbling. I’m certainly guilty of the same, quickly forgetting how the Lord answers my daily requests for safety and provision of needs, which was recently brought to my attention.”

Mike Woodruff recounts a conversation with a journalist friend. “I explained to my friend that I’d spent the last few years consuming news from both sides of the aisle, hoping to figure out what was going on. I complained that it hadn’t worked. ‘Instead of just being confused,’ I said, ‘I’m also exhausted and angry. Who can I trust to report the truth?’ I didn’t expect his response. ‘Mike, it’s worse than you think, and I’m more frustrated than you are.’”

In times of conflict or debate among those who profess the Christian faith, it is crucial to relate to others rightly. It is crucial to bear in mind who this person is and how God calls us to relate to him.

The troubles of this life; take them as they come, cheerfully and contentedly, thankfully praising God that there is good in the evil, and sweetness in the bitter. Take it all. It will not last long.
—Charles Spurgeon