One of the saddest things about growing older is not the wrinkles on our faces; it’s the wonder we sometimes lose from our hearts. Children are experts at wonder. Show them a ladybird and they’ll crouch down for twenty minutes. Give them a feather and they’ll treat it like treasure. Blow a few bubbles into the air and suddenly you’ve created the greatest show on earth.
Adults, on the other hand, become experts at being busy. We rush from one thing to another. We eat while driving, answer emails while drinking coffee and think about tomorrow before we’ve finished today. Somewhere between learning our times tables and paying our taxes, many of us quietly mislaid our sense of awe. The world hasn’t become less wonderful. We’ve simply become less observant.
I recently walked to the dentist. I passed an old man who smiled and said, ‘Beautiful morning, isn’t it?’
I stopped. Looked up. And realised I’d hardly noticed it. The sky was a brilliant blue. Birds were singing. The trees shimmered gently in the breeze. Flowers were bursting with colour in gardens. I’d walked through all that beauty without really seeing any of it. I was so busy walking through God’s world that I’d forgotten to look at it.
As I continued my walk another thought struck me. How often do I do the same spiritually? How often do I rush through my prayers? Read the Bible simply to complete a chapter? Sing a hymn without really thinking about the words? It’s possible to be surrounded by wonder and yet completely miss it.
Perhaps that’s why Jesus said, ‘Look at the birds’ (Matthew 6:26 NIV). Not because nobody had ever seen a bird before, but because hardly anybody was really looking. Children don’t merely look. They notice. Wonder begins when we stop rushing and start noticing. Perhaps that’s why Jesus said we must become like little children. Not childish. Childlike. Children ask the questions adults have forgotten to ask.
‘Why is the sky blue?’
‘Who taught birds to sing?’
‘Why are there so many stars?’
G.K. Chesterton observed that the world never lacks wonders; it only lacks wonder. How right he was.
The sun still rises every morning. The oceans know exactly where to stop. Every fingerprint is different. Every heartbeat is a gift.
The greatest things in life are not manufactured. They are marvelled at. Wonder is gratitude with its eyes wide open. A hurried soul is rarely a grateful soul. The quickest way to lose your joy is to stop noticing your blessings.
The Bible begins with awe: ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ (Genesis 1:1 NIV).
No explanation. Just majesty. Creation is God’s first sermon. The heavens preach without words. The stars sing without voices. The mountains applaud without hands. Every sunrise whispers, ‘There is a Creator.’ Every flower bears his signature. Every child reflects his image. Every breath reminds us that life is a gift.
The psalmist understood this. He looked beyond creation to its Creator. Then he prayed one of the most beautiful prayers in Scripture: ‘The one thing I ask of the Lord – the thing I seek most – is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, delighting in the Lord’s perfections and meditating in his Temple’ (Psalm 27:4 NLT).
Other translations beautifully express it as ‘to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord’. What a prayer. David asked for one thing: not merely to receive God’s gifts, but to delight in God himself.
Perhaps that is the forgotten art of wonder. Wonder is not simply admiring a sunset; it is meeting the One who painted it. Wonder is not simply standing beneath a star-filled sky; it is worshipping the One who calls every star by name.
Creation is the signpost. Christ is the destination. The beauty of the world is meant to awaken us to the beauty of the Lord.
That reminds me of Zacchaeus. Most people remember him as the little man who climbed a sycamore tree because he was too short to see over the crowd. But that isn’t really the point of the story. The real wonder is not that Zacchaeus was looking for Jesus. The real wonder is that Jesus was looking for Zacchaeus. He climbed the tree hoping to catch a glimpse of Christ. Instead, Christ stopped beneath the tree. Looked up. Smiled. And called him by name. ‘Zacchaeus! Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today’ (Luke 19:5 NLT). Imagine that. The Creator of the universe stopping beneath one insignificant tree to notice one overlooked man. That day Zacchaeus discovered something far greater than he had expected. He thought he was searching for Jesus. Then he discovered Jesus had been searching for him all along.
Many people say, ‘I found God.’ The truth is even more wonderful: God was never lost – we were. Long before we began asking questions about him, he had set his love upon us. Long before we took one step towards him, he had already taken countless steps towards us. We look for God only to discover that, all along, God has been looking for us.
Creation is God’s picture book. Jesus is God’s self-portrait. ‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us’ (John 1:14 NIV).
The God who painted the sunset stepped into his own sunrise. The God who designed the mountains walked among them. The God who filled the skies with stars lay beneath those same stars as a baby in Bethlehem. The Creator entered his creation to bring his creation home. That is the wonder of the incarnation.
And it leads us to an even greater wonder. The One who hung the stars hung on a cross. The One who breathed life into Adam surrendered his own breath for us. The hands that flung galaxies into space stretched out in love and bore the scars of nails. Then, on Easter morning, wonder walked out of an empty tomb. Death was defeated. Sin was conquered. Hope was reborn. Grace had the final word.
No wonder the disciples were never the same again. Neither should we be. We become familiar with prayer. Familiar with worship. Familiar with grace. Familiar with the cross. We sing extraordinary truths as though we were reading tomorrow’s weather forecast. Familiarity is one of faith’s greatest thieves.
The gospel should never cease to astonish us. So today . . . slow down. Look up. Listen carefully. Laugh often. Pray thankfully. Live expectantly. Notice the birds. Watch the sunset. Listen to the rain. Read a psalm. Then lift your eyes beyond the gifts to the Giver. Because the sunsets are still his. The stars are still his. The sparrows are still his. The whole earth is still full of his glory.
And if you belong to Christ . . . you are his too. That is not merely something to believe; it is something to wonder at. The world is still full of wonder because it is still full of God.
And perhaps . . . that is the greatest wonder of all.
J.John
