Ecclesiastes 3:11: “He hath made everything beautiful in His time.”

“I think I am beginning to understand it.”   Pierre Augusta Renoir

The great impressionist painter, Renoir, was fascinated with beauty and spent his life trying to understand what made something beautiful.  To him the rose was the most beautiful flower and he painted it often.  He found it to be so beautiful; yet, he could not understand why it was beautiful.  He spent his life painting this flower over and over trying to understand its beauty.  Was it its deep rich color, or its lines, or its shape?  Renoir died at the age of 78.  On the day that he died he was again painting a rose.  His housekeeper brought his lunch to him and overheard him mutter to himself, “I thinking I am beginning to understand it.”

I asked various art historians about these words and some say that he never felt he was a good painter and that he was referring to his ability to paint and that he was finally beginning to understand painting.  Yet, one art historian said something that I believe reveals the real thoughts of Renoir on the day he died.  He probably sensed he was going to die and when he did his mind turned to eternal things and his creator.  It was then that he realized why the rose was so beautiful and why he could never capture the true beauty of a rose in his paintings.  He realized that it was God who created all beauty and that the beauty he saw in the rose was really the beauty of God and he could never re-create the beauty that God created.

God will make everything beautiful in His time.  The word time in Hebrew is be’tho which could come from the root word ba’th which means to come upon without warning.  You could render this as He has made everything beautiful and it will come upon you without warning. The other day I was alone in my disability bus driving through the heart of Chicago to pick up a client. My IPod was queued up to my old people music, my mind was on trying to decide which route to take and I was filled with the cares of the day.  Suddenly, out of nowhere I felt a flood of peace and joy, that sure sign that my Heavenly Father was making Himself known unto me.  He came out of nowhere and He made everything, even the lost souls of the hood wandering aimlessly along the sidewalk look beautiful. God was suddenly ba’th.  It is like that when you let your time become His be’tho (time).

However, putting that aside, I think I will join in lock step with the position of most Hebrew teachers and say the root word  for be’tho (time) is ’adah which could mean to adorn oneself for a special time or season.    Perhaps you could render this as: “He will make everything beautiful and will adorn Himself with that beauty.  In that moment driving through the hood I saw a man laying against an old abandoned building, unshaven, ratted clothes, ignored by everyone who passed by. Yet, I saw in his face the Jesus that I loved.  That is an interesting thought, God will not only make everything beautiful, once He does, He will use that beauty to adorn himself.   He will not only make us beautiful, once he has accomplished making us beautiful, He will then adorn Himself with us.

I am beginning to realize that after three score and four years on this earth, God has been really working hard to make me beautiful and now with what time I have left on this planet, it is about time He starts to adorn Himself with His work.  Thus, everything I do now is to just find opportunities to let Him shine through me.

But that begs the question, what is beauty?  Certainly a dusty old professor can’t be beautiful after three score and four years, a homeless unshaven, unbathed man lying next to an abandoned building can’t be beautiful.   The word beauty in Hebrew is yepah which means of all things, beauty.  It can also mean good or appropriate.  That still does not help me understand just what can make the hood appropriate or how God can adorn Himself in the hood.

Perhaps this word for beauty or appropriate yepah has its own built in commentary. The word yepah is spelled Yod, Pei, Hei.  The Yod speaks of setting one’s priorities straight, in other words to do justly, love kindness; walk humbly before your God (Micah 6:8).  God will adorn Himself with the good works that grow out of knowing Him and loving Him.

The next letter in the word for beauty is the Pei.  The Pei calls us to speak words of purity and righteousness.   The Pei tells us to speak of the lovingkindness of God, to speak the heart of God.  This brings us to the last letter in beauty and that is the Hei.   The Hei commands us to listen for that still small voice.  It is in that still small voice that we will hear the message that we are to speak and reflect in our behavior.

I remember as a child attending a baseball game at Wrigley Field.  We sat way back in the stands behind home plate.  People around me were talking, shouting, laughing and making all kinds of noises.  Yet I discovered that even sitting way back in the upper levels of those stands, that if I focus my attention on the umpire and block out all the noises around me, I could actually hear that umpire shout “strike” or “ball” or even “out.”    That is how we hear that still small voice, we just block out all of life’s distractions and just focus our attention on God and we may actually hear him say: “Safe!” Or we may actually see the hood as beautiful.

So what is God going to adorn Himself with?  If we listen to His still small voice we will hear just what it is we are to say and do and when we say and do what that still small voice is asking,  we will adorn our Savior with a beautiful necklace or piece of Jewelry from our words and actions.

After threescore years and four years, I think I am beginning to understand it.