Where Did The Wonder Go?

The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.”
                                                             
                                                                   Isaiah 29:13-14 NIV

Recently I have been asking God for two things in the inner places of my soul.

First, I am praying that He would renew within me a sense of wonder and awe at who He is. And secondly, I am asking Him to renew within me a sense of joy and delight in the pages of His word (I’ll explore this second prayer in a future blog post).

Speaking of God's wonders:
The Antennae Galaxies
70 million light-years away

It is tempting to become satisfied with the degree to which I have come to know God. Instead of pushing deeper into the mystery of all that He is, I often accept a partial definition of Him that I can understand and am comfortable with.

The sad truth is that my familiarity with this limited picture of God breeds contempt for the very things that should cause me to constantly regard Him with awe and wonder—things like His infinite power, immeasurable love, unlimited grace, unending goodness and all-encompassing holiness. I’ve noticed that there is a direct correlation between my appreciation of God’s worth on one hand, and my sense of the seriousness of sin, my need for repentance, and the degree to which I take His grace for granted on the other.

Another thing I’ve noticed is this: The moment I stop searching out the mysteries of God is the moment I stop searching out the mysteries God has placed in other people.

My relationship with my wife is a perfect example. In our sixteen years of marriage, my behavior has often reflected a false belief that I have learned everything that there is to know about Karen—that my definition of her is complete. No sooner does that lie take hold than the wonder of her evaporates from my mind. She ceases to be special in my eyes, to be worthy of particular honour and respect. In reality, the things that ought to inspire wonder in me when I think about my wife have not changed at all; her inherent value, God-woven uniqueness and as-yet-to-be-revealed potential remain constant. I have simply chosen in my selfishness to stop discovering more of it.

Fortunately, one of the wonder-worthy things about my wife is her ability to gracefully confront me when I begin to follow this relationally-destructive road. But if this is prone to happen in my closest human relationship, how often does this occur in the rest of my family and friendships? And how often do I do the same thing to God?

The fundamental choice is this: Will I choose to define God and others according to the limits of my knowledge and understanding? Or will I allow God to define me according to His limitless knowledge and understanding? I pray that together we will choose the latter, more mysterious road, and in so doing find ourselves where we ought to be, and will be for eternity: in awe of the wonder and majesty of God.

Walk

"I find it difficult to believe that words have no meaning in themselves, hard as I try. Habits of lifetime are not lightly thrown aside."

                                                                            - Chase Stewart

Words are our function. They allow conversation. They bring names to things we couldn't even describe, if we did not have the words to describe them. I suppose it is like the chicken before the egg type business of life. The cleverness comes into play when a word gains new meaning, perhaps as a result of a new experience.

Take for instance the word, "walk". To some it depicts recreation. To others, a cold 20-25 minutes, depending on the reliability of Edmonton transportation.
Still to others it may be a memory, a hobby, or a date-able opportunity, if you take a long enough one on a metaphorical beach with the person of your choosing. Still to others, one in particular, the meaning of "walk" changes drastically when the future reliance of it could as well.

It was last fall when she sat...pondering the previous 20 minute appointment. Routine. Yet there was a sentence submitted briefly into its conclusion that changed what "walk" described. She had her challenges before now, but this time, this appointment, this moment... spoke deeper. You see, when you rely on the word "walk" as a descriptor of life, life changes when you add "not able to" in front of it. And it was T-minus 8 to 10 years before she may have to couple the wordings together.

She drove away, not sure what to make of such news, but knowing "walk" had, in a way, changed forever. Driving down the winding escapes of Edmonton's downtown, seeing paces of people moving fast and slow, seemed to provide a new perspective. A man, impatient at best, scurried from the bus stop at an attempt to out-do waiting for it to come. It seemed "walk" was on no one's mind but hers.

The wave of experience continued into a grocery store parking lot where, once annoyed, she looked onward to stalls adorned by a white on blue stencil of reservation, for those who perhaps thought much more often of "walk". She parked a little farther on and sat.  Watching those who came to occupy this space and then left. And she wondered when they perhaps experienced "walk" in a new way like she. And compassion joined her for the show.

Later that evening, a song filled her ears, as emotion filled her heart. The words of "take my feet and let them be, swift and beautiful for Thee" resounded, as the uncertainty came to join in. And "walk" had found new meaning in her vocabulary. It was not so much the "woe-is-me", as it was the "thank you Father, You hold all things".

You see, for her, experience unveiled a new reality to this word. It became a new compassion for her when she saw those who struggled. It allowed her to park farther away and enjoy the extra steps to the door. It made her think of new opportunities to enjoy and maintain health in the present, and preserve it in a new way for the future. For her, seizing the day meant seizing this word, "walk" in new appreciation.

I am certain I can think of words that tweak your experience; perhaps "baby", "marriage", "cancer", "money", "family", "baptism", "job", "friend", "church"...and so our vocabulary stretches. I hope you are challenged to find new meaning for the words in your life. Perhaps the reality for each of us in this hour is simply to reflect on which words we choose to ascribe experience to our lives. Walk on.
Pun, fully intended.

A Strong Calling

Have you ever come across those "hard to love people"? There can be tons of reasons as to why a person is hard to love. It can be as extreme as someone is being very cruel towards you and constantly acting in anger. Maybe it's someone who is in authority over you, continuing to make your life difficult just because they can.  It can be as simple as someone with an opposite personality than you.  We are all faced with the challenge to love people. I have found in my life that the times I have struggled to

love other people is usually a time when God was trying to reveal to me an area I needed to grow in. The issue would quickly go from seeing how someone is hard to love (based on a superficial reason) to seeing that the reason I couldn't love that person was because of my pride or selfishness. It also could have been my lack of acceptance and care. 

The times I have been blessed enough to realize God was up to something, I realized that I was trying to muster up the love on my own.  I was trying to love people by my own strength instead of allowing the love of God to flow freely from me. 1 John spells this out a little for us.

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."(1 John 4:7-12 NIV)

We love out of a response to what God has done for us by sending His one and only son to die for our sins. God freely gave His love to us, there is nothing that we have done to deserve this love and there is nothing that we could ever do to make God love us any more or any less.  Romans says, "While we were STILL sinners Christ died for us." You see when we come to fully understand the love God has for us, how can we even think that we have the right to decide who we show love to or not? The love that God has for us transforms our hearts towards other people, it has to!  A little bit later in chapter 4 of 1 John it says,

 "And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.  God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus."  (1 John 4:16-18 NIV)

This is a tall order to live like Jesus did but the bottom line is that this is our calling. In scripture we never see Jesus repaying evil for evil. We never see Him talking wrongly against the people that persecuted Him. Even as he was hanging on the cross suffering he was asking for the forgiveness of those that were persecuting him. He is in the business of loving people. One of my favorite stories in the bible is the one about the woman at the well.

Jesus and His disciples were on their way to Galilee and scripture says they had to go through Samaria. Geographically going through Samaria to get to Galilee was the shortest route to take but one that Jews never took. You see Jews had such hatred for the Samaritans that they looked at them as the outcasts, the despised. A Jew that had any contact with a Samaritan was viewed as unclean. It was very uncommon for Jews to go through the Samaria so when John said that “he had to go through Samaria” the necessity in going was not for geographical reasons but for the purpose of saving the lost.

There was a woman who had to go to the well in the scorching heat of the day in order to avoid people. Because she was a known prostitute she was looked down upon, people would judge her, and ridicule her. Most women during this time would take the long trek to the well for more water during the cool of the night while in community together. Jesus went against what culture said and went out of his way to find this woman. Jesus was living in such submission to God that he was aware of the divine appointments that were before Him. It didn't matter to him that his disciples thought he was crazy or that people would wonder why he was at the well with this woman alone. Jesus saw it as a chance to love someone that was an outcast in society, someone who was judged for the way they lived their life. The love of God was clearly being lived out in Jesus' life.  It was evident that he lived in such a way that love and compassion flowed freely from him, and remember that 1 John 4:17 said, "in this world we are to be like Jesus".  

As you encounter those "hard to love people" this week there are two things you can be thinking about. You can ask God if he is trying to reveal to you an area that you need to change in your own life in how you love others. You can also look at every encounter you have with someone as a God ordained appointment just like Jesus' appointment at the well. Cling to the cross for your strength and allow the love God has for you to flow freely from you as you love those around you like Jesus would.