Was it pre-natal depression syndrome, a diagnosis a doctor might have offered to reassure a young couple expecting a first child? That might have been what Michael and Lisa Gungor would have heard, had they actually been pregnant at the time, about a decade into the 21st Century. Instead, there were lots of other events outside of themselves, assailing their emotions as they tried to make sense of it all. This was in the months before they wrote that some “Beautiful Things” do indeed inhabit the world their God has created. Had the mile-high altitude affected their minds earlier, in their new home in Denver (see its flag here)? The world was a mess, and lots of their friends also had reasons to doubt the goodness of God in their own personal crises, so Michael and Lisa were asking poignantly for God to break through. And, He did…or showed that He already had.
The multifaceted anxieties of Michael and Lisa Gungor met up with their faith part way through the first decade of the 21st Century, and ‘Beautiful Things’ can be seen, more or less, as the ensuing discussion that this couple must have had with each other about all that was going on. War and poverty were on Lisa’s mind during that time, not to mention several friends who were having miscarriages. Was God trying to tell Michael and her that something was amiss? Was God even watching? The Gungors wanted to have children, and yet they couldn’t help feeling apprehensive about this world. It was Lisa who began to sort through it all, and a chorus emerged about how God makes some beautiful things, even ‘out of the dust’ of the ground. And since all of us flesh-and-blood beings come from that dust, He can make beautiful things ‘out of us’, too. One can imagine Lisa and Michael looking through Genesis, the very beginning, and reassuring themselves that the Creator knows what He’s doing. Other elements of human existence, which might seem dirty or unredeemable, can likewise be transformed with God’s influence. Nevertheless, I cannot initially see all that He sees, so my doubt coexists, for a time, with evidences of Him. ‘Pain’ (v.1), and even the ‘earth’ itself (v.2) are two concrete, doubt-inducing evidences that contest God’s goodness. These things don’t just surface occasionally, either. One might say that pain and all the other difficulties on planet Earth proliferate, threatening to suffocate what is good. So, you can hear those emotions in the Gungors’ verses, those misgivings that could choke out the courage through faith that we otherwise can have. A ‘garden’ and ‘hope’ are His gifts to us, to offset – or even re-make -- the alternatives that inhabit the ‘chaos’ and ‘lost’ things. He can ‘make me (and you) new’, a realization that perhaps hit Michael and Lisa most palpably months later when they had their first child, a life He made.
They admit that their daughter’s arrival helped speak to Michael and Lisa about Him, so that they could see other things with His fingerprints on them. He’s capable of creating, and re-creating, so He’s able to communicate hope to me, just by being who He is. Juxtapose that characterization of Him with what His opponent wants to do. You can find it all in your bible, if you choose to look. Peter said this noxious alternative to the Creator wants to ‘devour’ humanity (1 Peter 5:8). Satan is a tempter (Matthew 4:1-10), not even stopping with Jesus. He binds people in pain (Luke 3:16), is a liar and a source for others who lie (Acts 5:3), is a masquerade artist (2 Corinthians 11:14), and the source of injustice and ultimately the lawlessness that is to come at the end times (2 Thessalonians 2:9). But, He’s been beaten in eternity (Revelation 20), so what is your choice? You want to be with our Creator of beauty, or with the beaten in a fire pit?
The information for the song story is here: https://www.mlive.com/entertainment/grand-rapids/2011/03/gungor_finds_beautiful_things.html
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