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.