Seeing God’s Wonder for the First Time–Again
What if your eyes opened this morning, after a full night’s sleep, but there was nothing of God’s wonder to see?
No light anywhere. Not a race of the sun. No circling stars in their firm belt or moonshine. Not one streak of azure blue, flaming orange, blood red glint of subtle pink or swirls of purple in the sky. No seven-hued sweeping arc of rainbow. Not a hint of fire anywhere. No more lightning, that charged whip in the hand of God. Nary a firefly. And you had no idea how long this condition of the loss of God’s wonder would last.
No Water
What if there existed all the light and heat you could want, but no moisture could be found. You might glimpse a few taunting clouds drifting by, but no dew-drops. Trails of mist remained a feathery, long-ago, forgotten memory. No cool cover of fog or sweet smell or soft patter of sprinkles out of the skies. Hard-driving rain gone. No creeks, rivers, rushing waterfalls. Not even a trickle. No ponds, lakes, or rivers. You’d never experience God’s wonder of swirling snow to soften the city or powder the dusty hills. What if you awakened to the beginning of a seeming unending drought?
Sudden Stillness
What if you peered at light and water and other wonderous sights, but the world suddenly grew deathly still? Lifeless. Everything stayed as stationery as gargoyles, rigid as tombstones. Absolutely nothing moved. Not a wisp of wind to scatter leaves, a finch in a tree, a varmint in the forest.
No tick of a clock or a human sound or touch. Jumping spiders couldn’t weave their white sticky webs or spin their silken lairs. No migration of geese or monarch butterflies. Vultures never circled. No volcanic eruptions or earthquakes or grinding of tectonic plates.
Sounds peaceful, uncomplicated, perhaps safer–for a brief respite. But long-term prisoners know the sheer delight in finding the company of a rat or any critter that’s alive and moving.
Growth Not Allowed
What if you transferred into a world where nothing ever grew? Not a seed or a womb. No bursting rosebuds, wind-scattered milkweed pods, or flowers on prickly cactus. No acorns or eggs or spindly legged calves or ponies. Forget yellow chick balls or freshly drained and boiled maple syrup.
The wonder of God’s seasons remained in the long, distant past. No greens or smells of fresh cut lawn, pine or cedar anywhere. Not a scent of sweet blooming fragrances on a summer’s night. No bulb or spring or babies. Everything died from lack of growth.
What Would It Take?
What would it take to make water a wonder again? Or light? What would it take to make that next bit of food a delightful delicacy? Or make the closest sights and sounds, smells and touches, as well as movements a precious treasure straight from God’s wonder lab?
Nature is very much a now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t affair. Paying attention to God’s wonder often needs to be deliberate. The blind who regain their sight describe what it must seem like to newborns. The dazzle of delightful color patches. Distinguishing of objects and their meaning proves a challenge at first. They lack depth perception, concepts of height or distance. Colors and forms merge into confusion. It’s frustrating to realize they can be viewed by others much more clearly than they can see. They may wish to remain in the familiar dark walls of the blind.
It takes training or the nudge of God’s Holy Spirit to cultivate the ability to see further and deeper beyond blurs, hidden images, and surface perceptions. Otherwise, you can lose or never grasp the full sense of God’s wonder.
Janet Chester Bly
taken from Awakening Your Sense of Wonder
Copyright ©1997
Creative Eye Viewing Universe Image by Daniel Hannah from Pixabay
Woman at Waterfall Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay
Flowers Abstract Image by Owantana from Pixabay
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I love this Janet. what a great reminder! He is wonder – ful.