Wonder
From the Series—Wonder
December 9, 2003Last Friday night our family, along with some friends, went to see David Copperfield at the Warner Theater. I was excited about taking Parker and Summer because they are going through one of those stages where they are fascinated by magic. All night long, Summer kept leaning over and saying, “Dad, how did he do that?” And I kept saying, “I have no idea!” His final act was making ten randomly selected people from the audience disappear without any rehearsing. It was pretty incredible! But if you were to ask me the greatest part of the entire evening, I would tell you that it wasn’t anything David Copperfield did. It was expressions on the faces of my children. They watched the show in wide-eyed wonder! The look on their faces was priceless.
In recent months, Luke 11:33-35 has become one of my favorite passages of Scripture. The Message translation 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 you best-lighted room.”
I love that entire passage, but the phrase that has gotten in my spirit is “live in wide-eyed wonder.” That is what this three-part series of evotionals is all about. M.J. Ryan says, “In wonderment, children are our greatest teachers.” And I like her definition of wonderment. “Wonderment is the willingness to be surprised by life.”
The Father of the Man
In Matthew 18, the disciples ask Jesus a question. “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And it says Jesus “called a child and had him stand among them.” I can see Jesus positioning a little child in the middle of the circle and putting his hands on the child’s shoulders and saying, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Sir John Kirk, the 19th century British Naturalist, once said that if he had his way there would always be a little child positioned in the heart of London—perhaps in the precincts of Westminster Abbey or St. Paul’s Cathedral. And he said that no one would be allowed to contest a seat in Parliament or become a candidate for public office until he had spent a day with that child and passed an examination in the child’s novel methods of thought, feeling, and expression.
When I first read that I thought, “What a fascinating idea.” And then I realized that is exactly what Jesus did in Matthew 18. He proverbially positions a child in the heart of the kingdom of heaven. And he says if you want to get in you’ve got to change and become like little children. The word “change” is translated “converted” in the King James Version and it means “to reverse.”
That is what happens when we put our faith in Christ. It begins a reversal process. It reverses the effects of sin. It also reverses the effects of aging. I think half of spiritual growth is learning what we don’t know. The other half is unlearning what we do know—those assumptions and prejudices and limitations that accumulate and keep us from becoming the people God wants us to be. I love the way Theodore Geisel, better known at Dr. Seuss, defined “adult.” He said, “Adults are obsolete children.” A relationship with Christ reverses the effects of aging. We become like children again.
The statement “become like little children” means lots of different things, but this evotional focuses on one dimension.
Humility
Jesus said, “Whoever humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.” Before I define humility let me define pride. Spiritual pride is when your last experience with God becomes an obstacle to your next experience with God.
A few months ago I wrote about mountaintop experiences or spiritual highs. And I said that when you experience a spiritual high you need to guard against spiritual pride. It doesn’t surprise me that one of the first things that happens when Peter, James, and John come down from the mount of transfiguration is an argument about who’s the greatest. That is human nature. We turn spiritual highs into measuring sticks. They become ends in and of themselves instead of means to an end. If we aren’t careful, spiritual highs can hurt us instead of help us if they become a source of spiritual pride.
The true mark of spiritual maturity is when spiritual highs result in deeper levels of humility. I read an interesting book a few years ago titled Saints and Madmen. The author, Russell Shorto, makes a fascinating distinction between mystics and psychotics. He said, “A mystic is humbled by his experience, a psychotic is inflated.” The psychological term is grandiosity. The psychotic becomes pride-full and self-absorbed. But the mystic is humbled.
Smallness
One of my heroes is President Theodore Roosevelt. He had an interesting habit. Every now and then he would go outside and look up into the night sky with his naturalist friend, William Beebe. They would locate a faint spot of light in the lower left-hand corner of Pegasus and recite the following: “That is the Spiral Galaxy of Andromeda. It is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of a hundred million galaxies. It is seven hundred and fifty thousand light years away. It consists of a hundred billion suns, each larger than our own sun.” The President would pause and grin. And he would say, “Now I think we feel small enough. Let’s go to bed.”
Sherlock Holmes said, “The chief proof of a man’s real greatness lies in the perception of his smallness.”
Spiritual pride is when your last experience with God becomes an obstacle to your next experience with God. Maybe spiritual humility is when your last experience with God becomes a catalyst for your next experience with God.
Open System
Here’s one way of looking at it. Every year our staff does reconnaissance. We go visit a few churches that are doing things we want to do or they are doing what we’re doing but they’re doing it better than we’re doing it. The reason is simple: we don’t want to become a closed system. We want to be an open system. We want to keep exposing ourselves to outside influence. We want to keep learning and growing and stretching. Jesus said it this way in Luke 11:35, “Keep your eyes open.” In Matthew 7:7 he said it this way. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
Albert Einstein said, “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.” I think curiosity is an expression of humility—it is recognition that you have a lot left to learn. Curiosity is a holy instinct. I Corinthians 8:2 says, “The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.”
Mice and Monarchs
I love St. Chrysostom’s perspective on Matthew 18. He believed the preeminent charm of childhood lay in its scorn of those social distinctions that latter in life enslave us.
F.W. Boreham tells about an incident that illustrates this. A small boy was given the honor of presenting a bouquet of flowers to the Queen of England, but he got down on all fours and starting rummaging around her feet. He explained later that he thought he had seen a mouse! Boreham makes a great observation. To a child, monarchs and mice are of equal interest.
Children are equally interested in everything. If you don’t believe me, go on a walk with a two-year-old. If you walk at their pace, it’ll take ten minutes to go two blocks because they are fascinated by everything—everything from ant hills to cigarette butts. If you still don’t believe me, try to take a plain, old stick away from a child. It’s like you’re stealing their prize possession. They are equally interested in everything! They have a holy curiosity.
One of my favorite proverbs is Proverbs 25:2. “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.” It is almost like this cosmic game of cat and mouse. God hides so that we can seek and find. He plays off of our curiosity. I think seeking God and discovering who God is is the ultimate expression of curiosity. And it will never end. Here’s my definition of heaven—endless wonderment. It is wonderment for which there is no end. A.W. Tozer put it this way. “Eternity won’t be long enough to discover all that God is or praise him for all that He has done.”
The Law of Fascination
Jeremiah 2:19 says, “I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me.” Some of you can remember your spiritual honeymoon—how you felt right after accepting Christ. Everything was new. You had a sense of freedom, an inexpressible joy, and a peace that passes understanding. But somewhere along the way the same thing happened to you that happened to Israel. Jeremiah 2:19 says, “[You] have lost the awe of me.”
If you’re “backsliding” the cure is to recapture the wonder—the awe of being in relationship with the Creator of the universe! That is why the early church was so magnetic. Acts 2:43 says that “everyone was filled with awe.” They couldn’t wait to see what God would do next.
A.W. Tozer talks about what he calls the law of fascination. Fascination is to be spellbound by some irresistible charm. If something doesn’t fascinate us we can take it or leave it. Tozer said, “Christians who do not know this law will never be anything but half-Christians all their lives.” To live in awe of God is to be spellbound by God—he is the supreme fascination of our lives.
Cause of Wonder
Here is my philosophy of pastoring. I see myself as a spiritual coach. I want to help people live their life Monday to Friday in a way that glorifies God. I want to help answer their questions. I want to help solve their problems. I want to help people understand who God is. But I don’t want to reduce God to the size of the human mind.
I love the way one Greek Orthodox theologian put it. “It is not the task of Christianity to provide easy answers to every question, but to make us progressively aware of mystery. God is not so much the object of our knowledge as the cause of our wonder.”
The Voice of David
In its September issue, Fast Company interviewed Business School Deans and asked them their secret to success. Patrick Harker of The Wharton School discussed his successful leadership of a $425 million fund-raiser. He said he was guided by a tradition practiced in Benedictine Monasteries called “listening to the voice of David.” Before a decision is made, the Abbot asks everybody’s opinion starting with the youngest. “The order is intentional,” says Harker. “In the Bible, nobody listens to David. There were plenty of gizmos with which to fight Goliath, and David was dismissed as a punk kid with a slingshot. In the end, the kid was right.”
Harker says, “When I’ve made a good decision, it’s usually because I’ve listened to the voice of David. And when I’ve made a poor decision, it’s usually because I haven’t taken time to listen.”
Isaiah 11:6 says, “A little child shall lead them.” The younger you are the less you have to unlearn. You don’t know what can’t be done! You have fresh ideas because you have fresh eyes. Sometimes those fresh ideas are naive ideas. Long live naivety!