Wonder Class: Session 1

Week 1 of 'Amazed: Living a Life Full of Wonder'

The first order of business was to identify the lack of wonder that marks our lives. When we were younger, we saw the world with such magic. As we grew...and as our culture progressed into a diagnostic approach to living...we categorized and anaylyzed everything to the point that we were robbed of mystery, inspiration and possibility.

We need to recapture our wonder. We need to look at our everyday lives with the kind of awe that reconnects us to the eternal. We need to see the fingerprints of God and rejoice...all possible in our daily lives.

“Live with the wonder of a child…” [From a song by Mark Schultz]

"Dear Lord, grant me the grace of wonder. Surprise me, amaze me, awe me in every crevice of your universe. Delight me to see how Your Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not His, to the Father through the features of men's faces. Each day enrapture me with Your marvelous things without number. I do not ask to see the reason for it all; I ask only to share the wonder of it all." [-Heschel from Ragamuffin Gospel by Manning]

“The spirituality of wonder knows the world is charged with grace, that while sin and war, disease and death are terribly real, God’s loving presence and power in our midst are even more real.” [Manning from Ragamuffin Gospel]

One of the ways to step towards a life full of wonder is to live as though God is in the room. BECAUSE HE IS!!! When we encourage or compliment a friend, we say things like, "You are so compassionate" or "You make everyone feel like they have a friend." When we speak of God, we say things like, "He is faithful." or "He is good." Our own words reflect how much we function as though God is far away...even though He is closer than that friend we would compliment. We need to step back into the reality that our compartmentalized life is really within an eternal reality. Our timeline, while also physical, is infused with the abundant, eternal life that Jesus revealed. 

“If we cannot ‘practice the presence of God,’ it is something to practice the absence of God, to become increasingly aware of our unawareness till we feel like man who should stand beside a great cataract and hear no noise, or like a man in a story who looks in a mirror and finds no face there, or a man in a dream who stretches his hand to visible objects and gets no sensation of touch.” [-C.S. Lewis from The Four Loves]

So, we are starting small...because He is in the details.

1. Make something that you can carry with you through the day that will remind you that God is in the room. We made bracelets, but others may like the idea of a post-it note or something else. THEN...interact with Him in that moment.

2. Begin a list of some of your Favorite Things. Choose one that's do-able, and do it! BUT...do it WITH God. Enjoy!