As we continue our week-long focus on seven longings of the human heart, today we're going

to look at the longing we all share for beauty. God has created beauty all around us, beauty we can

see and beauty we can feel.

And in a world so inundated with false notions of beauty,

today my prayer is that God reveals the purity within this longing that resides within

each of our hearts and his perfect plans to satisfy it.

Welcome to the First 15 podcast. Our scripture for today comes from Psalm 149 verse 4.

Scripture says,

For the Lord takes pleasure in his people,

he will beautify the humble with salvation.

Beauty. he will beautify the humble with salvation. Beauty is captivating in all its forms.

From sunsets to mountaintops, flower petals to starry nights.

We devote countless hours, years, and even lives to the wonder and

pursuit of beauty. We write songs and poetry in devotion to that which inspires us with its beauty.

We spend our blood, sweat, and tears in attempt to discover if we have any

beauty within ourselves. We are a people marked by a need for beauty, an insatiable longing that can

only be satisfied in its creator. For a long time, I tried to rid

myself of the longing for beauty. I tried simply not to desire it. I equated this longing within me

to a pursuit of vanity that seemed only to end in destruction.

It wasn't until my longing for beauty began to find its satisfaction in God that I discovered God's original purpose behind it.

The longing for beauty is an incredible gift given to us by our Heavenly Father.

Every time we look upon something beautiful, we get a glimpse into the beautiful heart of God.

...