God of Wonder

I was listening to the radio Saturday night while driving home and the lyrics caught my attention. “Your baby blues, so full of wonder….” (Plumb) which led, thought-progression-wise, to the upcoming Christmas season and that Gloria Estefan song about seeing Christmas through the eyes of a child.

And I felt a little wistful and nostalgic. Because the holidays were always such an exciting and fun time for me as a child. But I’m not taking you there. We’re going someplace else.

I know God’s desire for me is a childlike faith – complete trust, open-hearted love and a life lived with abandon for Him. I’ve also learned that He often answers my prayers in a positive way when the end result will be my deeper relationship with Him and a life lived to His glory.

So I prayed. I asked God to restore to me a sense of wonder. Not in a Disney, computer-animated, wow me kind of way. I want to see God’s creation, His awesomeness through the eyes of a child again.

In her book, “Awakening Your Sense of Wonder”, Janet Chester Bly says that “Wonder is the ability to be amazed or offer sincere respect or count some things as sacred. We grow in wonder when we…allow the attitude of awe and appreciation to rule, rather than skepticism and resentment. Wonder is a moment of enlightenment, a ‘graced moment’ when the humdrum tingles with excitement, when we’re faced with a scene straight out of heaven’s drama or tranquility.”

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of skepticism, cynicism and pessimism. I need the mind of a child! I want to be wowed all right, but by the small things that I would normally consider mundane. Listen to what Janet Bly goes on to say: “We’re so immersed in the gifts of the ordinary that we can’t see them. The rich jewels of our daily inheritance awaken in us no more wonder than the gold-and-antique-encrusted rooms of a fifty-room palace dazzle a spoiled prince. Appreciation and longing and gratefulness remain unborn until we lack something that we’ve taken for granted.”

So I prayed. I want to notice them now. I want to praise God for His good and perfect gifts this minute. I want to be aware of the world around me and be awed by it.

The next morning, I stood on my driveway waiting for a ride to church. My attention was drawn to a snail making its way across the cement. Its head was fully extended and I could see the shell rolling slightly from side to side as it lumbered forward. I was mesmerized. And my mind began to think of all those creatures that God has given homes and protection on their backs. And how different each one is. I was stopped dead in my thoughts and AWED by the fact that God is indeed awakening a sense of wonder in me again. All I had to do was ask!

Mark 10:14-16
When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.