With Wonder

When I returned from a women’s conference where there was a big bookstore, of course I carried books!  One of them is a book of meditations by John Piper called “Taste and See.”  And when I saw that one is entitled, “The Great Work of God:  Rain”, I was certainly interested.  I do love a good, hard rain!  Or a soft, gentle one.

 

In this short essay, he meditates on Job 5:8-10,”But as for me, I would seek God, and I would place my cause before God; Who does great and unsearchable things, wonders without number.  He gives rain on the earth, and sends water on the fields.”  He asks the question, “Is rain a great and unsearchable wonder wrought by God?”

 

I tend to think that everything – sun rising, rivers rushing, my blood running – is not only accomplished by God, but is also easy for Him.  We talk about His working to keep the universe and our lives on track with His plan and I consider that I must have great faith because I believe He can do that without a problem.  And, of course, He can!  But here is why that is bad thinking…I lose my sense of wonder in the world.  It is not great faith but laziness that causes me to just accept that He does it all.  He is a working God and the miracle of creation and its maintenance never stops.

 

John Piper goes on to describe a farmer in the Near East whose fields are far from any lake or stream.  How will he water crops?  He won’t; but God can.  That water must come from the sky through an amazing process of water (144,735,360 pounds of it!) carried from the Mediterranean Sea (salt removed!) and dropped in droplets big enough to fall for a mile or so without evaporating on their way to the crops and yet small enough not to injure the plants.

 

When I take time to meditate and investigate the great wonder of God’s daily work, that’s when my faith is increased.  Let me not lose my sense of wonder!

 

Psalm 8:3-5

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?  You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.