Wide-eyed Wonder
From the Series—Wonder
December 14, 2003This evotional continues our Wonder series. The Message translation of Luke 11:33-35 says, “Your eye is a lamp, lighting up your whole body. If you live in wide-eyed wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. Keep your eyes open, your lamp burning, so you don’t get musty and murky. Keep your life as well-lighted as your best-lighted room.”
Thin Places
One of my earliest memories was going to cut down a Christmas tree when I was five years-old. It was a cold night which goes without saying when it’s December in Minnesota. There was snow on the ground and you could smell the pine needles and the sky was perfectly clear. You could see hundreds of stars. And I’ll never forget as long as I live my grandfather holding me in his arms and quoting Psalm 19. He said, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament speaks of his handiwork.” It’s tough to describe what happened that night, but let me explain it this way.
I love Celtic Christianity. The Celts were in touch with nature and they celebrated God’s creation. And as part of their natural theology they talked about what they called “thin places”— places where the natural and supernatural worlds come together at their narrowest. When I think back on my experience as a five year-old, I would describe it as one of those “thin places.” I could sense God’s presence as I looked up into the sky in wide-eyed wonder and belief.
Last week we focused on living in wide-eyed wonder by looking at life through the eyes of children. Jesus said, “Unless you become like little children you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” This week’s evotional focuses on living in wide-eyed wonder by celebrating creation. If you have a Bible you can turn over to Psalm 19. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”
Second Conversion
In his book, Rumors, Philip Yancey says we need to experience two conversions. The first conversion is discovering the supernatural world. It is the realization that there is more to life than meets the eye! Yancey says the second conversion is rediscovering the natural world. We need to see the natural world through supernatural eyes. In other words, we need to look at creation and see it for what it really is—the handiwork of the Creator.
Enlightenment
Ephesians 1:18 is one of my favorite prayers in Scripture. Paul says, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” The word “enlighten” means to see what was always there but you never noticed. Genesis 28 is a classic example. Jacob wakes up from a God-ordained dream and he says, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware of it.”
One dimension of spiritual growth is an increasing awareness of God’s presence. I Peter 1 says it this way, “Your life is a journey, you must travel with a deep consciousness of God.” Living in wide-eyed wonder is seeing God where you didn’t see Him before.
20/40
During my senior year of high school, my basketball coach noticed that I was squinting at the free throw line. He suggested that I go and get my eyes checked out. I had never worn contacts or glasses. I didn’t think I needed them. But I went to the phthalmologist and he said I had 20/40 vision which simply means I was seeing at 20 feet what most people could see at 40 feet. You can function pretty well with 20/40 vision—you can get your driver’s license, you can read print, you can recognize faces. But you lack acuity—distant objects look blurry or fuzzy.
I will never forget the car ride home after putting in contacts for the first time. I almost can’t put it into words. It was a five minute drive down 75th street. We had made that drive hundreds of times. But it was like I seeing things for the first time! I remember looking off to my right and seeing some pink and purple flowers. They were so vivid and so colorful and so beautiful I could hardly believe it. I was able to see what had always been there.
I love John Taylor’s definition of being “in the spirit.” He says, “To be ‘in the spirit’ is to be vividly aware of everything that moment contains.”
The poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, said, “Earth is crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; but only he who sees takes off his shoes; the rest sit around pluck blueberries.” To be “in the spirit” is to see the glory of God that was always there but we never noticed.
Day after Day
Psalm 19 says “day after day” they pour forth speech and “night after night” they display knowledge. It is human nature to take constants for granted. If you’ve never had to beg for food—you’ve never experienced involuntary starvation—you take food for granted. That’s human nature. You’re not as grateful as you could be or would be if food was not constant.
Right now you have no sensation of motion, but you are sitting on a planet that is spinning at approximately 1,000 mph. Planet earth will make one full rotation in the next twenty-four hours. Not only that, you’ll traveling through space at approximately 67,000 mph. Before the day is done, we will travel 1.3 million miles in our annual trek around the sun. Now let me ask you a question: when was the last time you thanked God for keeping us in orbit? Probably never! Why? Because we take constants for granted!
John Donne said, “There is nothing that God hath established in the constant course of Nature, and which therefore is done everyday, but would seem a miracle, and exercise admiration, if it were done but once.”
Here is the problem with God: He is so good at what he does that we tend to take Him for granted. He is so faithful. He is so available. He is so good that we take him for granted. God is the ultimate constant so we take Him for granted.
The only antidote is to appreciate everything. G.K. Chesterton is one of my favorite authors. He said his ultimate goal in life was to take nothing for granted—not a sunrise, not a flower, not a laugh.
John Muir, the founder of the Sierra club, said, “It is always sunrise somewhere.” I don’t know why, but I’d never thought about that before. It is always sunrise and sunset someplace! The miracle never ends. The challenge we face is this: we are surrounded by miracles but if we aren’t careful we’ll get used to them. Muir said, “This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”
Brave
Thomas Carlyle said, “Worship is transcendent wonder. Wonder for which there is no limit or measure; that is worship.” He said imagine a man who had lived in a cave his entire life stepping outside for the first time to watch the sunrise. Carlyle said he would watch “with rapt astonishment the sight we daily witness with indifference.”
G.K. Chesterton said, “Grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. Is it possible God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon? The repetition in nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.” I think Chesterton was right. The Message translation of Psalm 29 says, “Bravo, God, Bravo. All the angels shout encore!”
What I’m trying to say is this. I think we need to experience each day as if it is the first day and last day of our lives. Fredrick Buechner said, “Today is the first day of you life because it has never been before and today is the last day of your life because it will never be again.”
First Day
This week an NCCer told me about a friend from India who had never seen snow before. He set his alarm for 3 AM last Saturday to go out and play in the snow! He didn’t wear a jacket because he didn’t realize how cold snow is and when his body got numb he had to go inside, but not before experiencing snow for the first time. There is something about the “first time” that is so special.
I’ll never forget the first time Lora and I held hands—I remember exactly where I was because that experience is seared into my memory. It was like electricity shooting through my hand and into the rest of my body! I remember my first flight. I looked out the window almost the entire flight because I’d never experienced anything like it before! The first time you visit someplace or see something there is an added element of excitement.
M.J. Ryan says, “The secret to love—and a sense of joy and gratitude toward all of life—is to see, feel, and hear as if for the First Time. Before the scales of the habitual clouded the brilliant blue sky outside your office window, the tangy juiciness of an orange, or the softness of a loved one’s hands. Before you got used to her kind words, his musical laughter, that they became invisible.”
I think one secret to living in wide-eyed wonder is learning to live every day as if it is the first day of our lives! Fredrick Buechner said that everyday he woke up it was like God said, “Let there be Buechner.” What a great way to start the day!
Last Day
We need to live every day as if it is the last day of our lives. In his book, Rumors, Philip Yancey tells a story about a friend of his who was going blind. The doctors told her she would lose her sight so she decided to revisit all of her favorite places to see them one more time before she goes blind.
It’s not until we lose what we have that we really appreciate it. M.J. Ryan calls it retroactive gratitude. Retroactive gratitude is realizing after something or someone is lost that you really appreciated what you had, but weren’t aware of it until it was gone.
Live today like it’s the last day of your life!