How Form Follows Function

Earlier this week, while driving down Hospitality Lane, I noticed a Land Rover pulling into a parking lot. As I passed it by I was struck by how incredibly unattractive the vehicle was to look at. It was just a box on wheels. And I thought to myself, what a great example of how form follows function. Now, I don’t mean that the car is good-for-nothing and so looks like it too. I mean it made me think of other cars that I have seen (and now see in my mind’s eye) that are indeed nice to look at.

We all have the picture in our minds of what a “beauty of a car” looks like (my apologies to those for whom the Land Rover is one such vehicle). It seems to me that the cars that I think look good have something in common besides just a pleasing figure; they have sound aerodynamic design. Those cars best suited to minimize wind resistance often seem also to be some of the best looking vehicles out there. The form follows the function.

When a car is made to best conform to the laws of physics that our Creator put in place, it turns out that the design of the car naturally takes on a form of beauty.

Rick Warren shares that “you are God’s handcrafted work of art. You are not an assembly-line product, mass produced without thought. You are a custom-designed, one-of-a-kind, original masterpiece” (Purpose-Driven Life, p. 235).

Take a good look at yourself. Go ahead. I’ll wait… Still waiting. Okay. Well, if you don’t have a mirror handy now, definitely spend an extra moment next time you pass a mirror (I figure that is already common practice for you anyway).

Right now, take a look inside yourself. You might find baggage from the past, emotional spider webs, all sorts of things you wish were not there. But look past all that. Do you see beauty? It’s there. God had a purpose in mind when creating each of us. And He placed in us all that is necessary to fulfill that purpose. We were designed to fulfill a function, to do things only God has yet imagined, but it’s in the plan. And it just so happens that the gifts, abilities, personalities and passions that He infused into us naturally take on a form of beauty.