While walking through an oat field I saw an artist painting some sheaves of oats. He had just begun, and I noticed with great surprise that instead of painting the oats yellow and the shadows gray, he was laying on blue, green and red, though I could not see a trace of any of these colors in the object.
“How is it,” I remarked, “that you use so many colors for such a simple thing; there is no blue, or green, or red, in those sheaves.”
“Indeed there is,” he replied, “and many more colors, too, but I dare say you cannot see them.”
“No, I can see nothing but yellow and a little gray.”
“That may be true,” he said, “for I painted for a long time, and only saw what you do. But by constant practice and study, I noticed many colors which I did not at the first. In that sheaf now there is a red mingling with the yellow, and in the gray shadows I see a blue most distinctly. I know it is there, because, if I were to paint my picture all yellow and gray, you would tell me it was a bad painting, very flat and dead; whereas, now, if I finish it successfully, you will say it looks life-like. Anyone can see the general colors, but the tints that give a picture life and reality, and the object all its beauty, are only seen by close and constant observers.”
Well, I thought I never knew before how much in painting depended on close and accurate observation! No doubt I had seen as many sheaves of oats as my friend, but I had not observed them, for I had no interest in them.
That evening I read a chapter in one of the Gospels. Being very tired, although the chapter was a favorite one, I am sorry to say it did not interest me much, and I felt disappointed. Ah! I thought, I must take a lesson from the artist. The reason I see so little beauty in Jesus, so little to attract me in a chapter that is full of Him, is because my eye is not educated.
Dear friends, this is the secret of finding beauty to satisfy the heart in Christ. We must have two things—interest and close study. As the painter said so truly,
“Anyone can see the general colors; but the tints that give the object all its beauty, are only seen by close and constant observers.”
“Consider,” says Paul, “the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.”
It is only as we consider Him, that we find how He grows upon the soul, till soon His beauty seems too much for our hearts, His glories more than our aching eyes can bear.
I remember an instance of this not long since. I was staying for the night at the house of an old friend that I had not seen for years. In the morning there was family prayer. The chapter read was John 5, about the impotent man, a passage I had often read, but in which I had never seen anything very striking. I did not, therefore, expect to be much interested in any remarks that might be made upon it. But my friend had “an educated eye;” where I could discern nothing but the general outline, he could see the hidden beauties, and wonderfully he brought them out. It was all Christ. The lowly quiet way in which He enters unnoticed the scene of suffering; He, the Jehovah, the Lord Almighty, led there by His tender heart. How touchingly and simply He comes up to the sick man’s bed, singling out the one whose need was greatest, and saying, in the full consciousness of His divine power,
“Wilt thou be made whole?”
With what calm authority He commands the man, and at the same time enables him, to do that which in itself was an absolute impossibility. And then, His work finished, the quiet way in which He disappears; all this and much more I heard with a delighted heart, wondering, as color after color appeared in the picture, that I had never seen them before.
Beloved reader, no object in heaven or on earth so well repays study as the man Christ Jesus. Read through the Gospels again, slowly, carefully, endeavoring to catch the spirit, the exquisite grace, in which the Lord spoke and acted. Surely we have an interest in Him that we have in none other. He has redeemed us, loved us with an everlasting and costly love, and even now is longing to make Himself known in deeper measure to our poor careless hearts. Let us, then, “Consider Him” who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself; and bit by bit His beauties will appear, until in the pages of Scripture we see Christ Himself in all the loveliness of His perfect life.