Did you ever just stop...

Have you ever stopped to wonder what it must have been like when God created the heavens and the earth? Did you ever wish you could have been there when God spoke everything into existence? I can just see the angels watching in awe as God speaks and things begin to happen. God said, “Let there be animals on the earth” and BOOM! Animals of every kind suddenly appear. I’ll bet the angels went wild with cheering and rejoicing. God looks over at them and says, “You liked that? Wait until you see what’s coming next! I’m going to create humans. They’ll be made different from all other creation, because I’ll make them in My image. When all of creation looks at them, they’ll be able to see a picture of Me.” Imagine the buzz of excitement the angels must have felt as they watched God form man from the dust. Already they know something is different. God had simply spoken everything else into existence, these humans were different. Then, God breathes life into the shape He’d made and Man was born. I imagine the angels must have gone wild in celebration. That’s how the Bible begins, with the wonder of creation. Jump to the end of the book and you find a new Heaven and new earth with a new Jerusalem. Imagine the wonder of that sight, the perfection, the beauty, the grandeur. Of course, chances are your gaze will be riveted on the Lamb, on the brightness of God shining so brightly that there’s no need for a sun to shine. The Bible, bookended with wonder.

How about the middle? All you have to do is head to Psalms and you’ll find the psalmists over and over speaking in awe and wonder of God or telling of how they see His glory in His creation. You find that God has encompassed His creation with His glory and grandeur, but we humans are the ones He created to truly see and feel that sense of wonder that comes from seeing Him and all His glory at work. Think about the last time you watched in wonder at a beautiful sunset or sunrise, or maybe marveled at the awesome power on display during a thunderstorm. Maybe it was from watching a row of ants moving an impossible load across the yard or gazing at the majesty of a lion on the hunt. Do you realize that humans are the only creation that would ever truly pause to stop in wonder of a site like that? Why? Because of all creation, we alone are capable of realizing the beauty and design behind what we’ve seen. I know some of you are thinking, “Animals must have the ability to sense wonder, beauty and awe. I’ve watched my dog Jethro sit and gaze at the sunset. Surely he is able to appreciate the beauty in that.” Now I realize that Disney, cartoons, and even animal rights activists have worked hard over the past several decades to convince us that animals are as human as they can be, but, really? Do animals really stop to smell the roses, gaze at sunsets, or stare in wonder at a night sky, or do they go about their way, living the life they were created to live? Now, this is not an argument against PETA or other activists, simply a statement that we alone of all creation have the capacity to be in true awe and wonder, having the ability to see beyond the surface into the deeper reasons and thoughts. We were made that way.

Because we are made that way, there is within us the desire to be lost in wonder, the desire to know that there is something much bigger than us out there. We long for those moments when we are knocked into silent wonder, almost unable to even breathe as we are enveloped in the amazement of that which is greater than us. It’s in those moments of worship we find ourselves simultaneously humbled and lifted up, and that’s what worship is really about. David Jeremiah, in his book My Heart’s Desire, calls those moments true worship (p.16) and encourages us to realize that for us to truly worship we need to remember what it is like to get lost in wonder and amazement, to nurture and develop it and not let the circumstances or culture of the world we live in to take that away from us. Think of it this way. A small child looks at everything in the world in wonder. Everything is fresh and new, experiences happen for the first time. They are constantly in wonder of everything around them (maybe that explains why a purple dinosaur can sing a silly song and be such a huge celebrity among kids). But, as they grow older, they begin to see the same things over and over and what happens? They lose the sense of wonder and as they get older, a cynicism can set in causing them to think there’s nothing new anymore. Why do you think Hollywood spends so much on the newest technology, the latest CGI? Why are the top grossing movies today full of fancier and more spectacular special effects? Just watch a top grossing movie from 10 years ago and you’ll see. You’ll probably say, ”This is a classic, but, man, I wish they’d redo that scene so it could pop off the screen the way movies today do it.” (There’s something to be said about loving the classics, although could you see kids today sitting through The Court Jester with Danny Kaye or even Dante’s Inferno with Spencer Tracy?)

Things move forward at spectacular rates these days because people are seeking that sense of wonder, and they think it will only come when something bigger and better comes along. But, every so often, something happens that causes us to stop, all movement ceases, and we sit in silent wonder or joyful amazement like a mountain view or a baby’s first steps. God desires us to seek Him with that same sense of wonder, that child-like faith and wonder. That’s one of the reasons why children had such an important place in Jesus’s heart. The disciples had lost that wonder and saw the children as a nuisance. Jesus knew, however, that children looked for Him with that pure sense of wonder and held them up as an example for us to follow, not to be childish in how we act or seek Him, but to have that child-like faith and wonder, that comes to Him with open hearts and minds ready to be amazed by what He has done. David Jeremiah puts it this way: “We don’t need a convenient, compact god. We need the One who causes us to fall upon our knees, who leaves us speechless, who makes our eyes shine with His fire and causes us to depart as changed persons. And we need that God every moment of every day.” (p.18)

How do we keep that wonder in our lives, then? Psalm 66 lays out the response of a passionate worshipper lost in wonder of God. The psalmist begins with the exhortation for everything on earth to shout with joy to God, to proclaim His glory, not just to the world, but to God Himself as well. He’s seen what God can do, how great He is and is overwhelmed in wonder. He’s very passionate about his worship, that’s evident, not just from his language but his desire that the whole earth join him in his exuberant expressions of worship. And that’s the first step for us, too. Seeing the wonder of God must be a passion of the heart, something that compels us, that drives us, causes us to want everyone around us to join in. (If you’re like me, you probably need to stop here and do a self-examination.) You see, the psalmist wasn’t just shouting out words about some great God, no, he was crying out about a God he knew personally, a God Whom he’d seen at work in his life and all around him. That knowledge consumed him and lit a fire inside him that burned brightly for all to see. How well do we know God, not just about Him. What experiences have we had personally with the Almighty that drives us to cry out to everyone of the wonder and glory God contains?

He exhorts the listener to join him, to see what God has done, how He provided and took care of him and his people. He knew that God had brought them to where they were now because of their faithfulness to Him. How does where you are now speak of your faithfulness to God? If we are to live lives of wonder, we must be faithful to God, whether in good times or bad. Even if our enemies “walk on our hands” (v. 12), we still need to be faithful to God. We must trust Him at all times to be our Provider, our Protector, our God.

Living this life will require sacrifice. In verses 13-15 the psalmist tells God that he will go to the Temple and offer his sacrifices, the things he’s promised God he would do. So too for us, living lives of wonder will require that we give up something of ourselves – our time, our passions, our resources, our will. We must humbly submit ourselves to God and seek to live the life He’s laid out for us to live.

But living the life of wonder isn’t all about sacrifices or trials. No, the psalmist concludes the psalm with the exhortation for all who are listening to come and hear of what God had done for him as he has lived a life of passionate wonder. God was there whenever he was in trouble, listening and ready to respond. He knew that because he’d come to God on God’s terms, followed God’s plan, he was blameless before God. He knew that because he knew God heard his cries, both for help and of worship and praise, and knew that were he not blameless, God wouldn’t have listened. Instead, the psalmist knew and rejoiced in the fact that God had heard every cry, every shout, and hadn’t withheld anything from him, whether grace, mercy or love.

When we live a life passionately seeking the wonder of God, a life lived seeking to know Him personally and experientially, a life dedicated to being faithful to Him no matter the cost, willingly submitted to God’s control, we will find great reward. Life abundant and free. Blameless before God. Help when we need it. Love unending. And, perhaps the most important, constant wonder at the presence of God reaching into our lives in personal ways every day we live the life of wonder.

Excerpts from My Heart’s Desire by Dr. David Jeremiah. Copyright 2002, published by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Scripture quoted from The Holy Bible, New Century Version, copyright 2005, Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Entering the throne room boldly

Hebrews 4 has this wonderful section of verses at the end of the chapter. Verse 12 tells us that God's Word is alive, powerful, able to cut us to the quick, to get directly to the heart of every issue in our lives, holding us all accountable for every thought and imagination. Verse 13 carries the theme over to God, stating that nothing can be hidden from Him, not even the deepest, darkest secret we have. It all is open before Him. Then, we get to the last three verses.

You might think that, after reading that both God and His Word are able to see and examine every little thing we do that there is no hope of ever living a life that would be good or pleasing before God. I mean, think about it. Every thought, every secret action. The “real” you that stays locked away deep inside where no one is able to ever see it. It’s so used to being in locked in the dark it’s probably gone permanently blind since it never has light to see by. That part of you. If we’re all honest we all would say that there’s a part of us we see as “ugly,” the part we think if people knew about us they’d run far and fast away from us, never to return. God sees that, and His Word cuts deeply enough into our hearts to reach that area and open it up before Him. Knowing that, some might think that there’s no way we would ever be able to live a life that would be pleasing to God. And, you know what? They’d be right – IF we were living our lives on our own, under our own strength and power. But, we don’t have to.

Verses 14-16 carry wonderful hope and the promise of living fulfilled lives. You see, we don’t have to approach God on our own. Sinful, messed up us attempting to stand before a perfect, holy God. On our own we wouldn’t last a second in the presence of His awesome glory. But we don’t walk into the throne room alone. We have a High Priest that goes before us, Who makes us worthy through the sacrifice of Himself that He offered on our behalf. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is our Priest, and we are exhorted to hold fast to our faith in Him and what He’s done for us. Not just in respect to redemption, although that alone is enough, but Jesus did more than just pay our debt. He came to earth as one of us, lived a life like we live, faced the same issues, fought the same battles against temptation and sin, so He understands where we come from. He knows how hard it is to fight temptation – He fought it Himself. He knows what it’s like to put God’s will first and foremost in His life, even when He personally would have loved to have a different way to get it done – He did God’s will anyway. And, it’s because He faced those same struggles we have this hope: our Priest, Who faced the same trials and temptations as we do, is able to freely enter in to the throne room of God and because He can, we can too. Not only can we enter, we are told to enter with boldness and assuredness, knowing that we are there because we belong there, not as outsiders or outcasts, but as followers of the High Priest and ourselves the children of God. We find mercy freely poured out over our lives and we find the grace we need to make it through the situations in life we find ourselves in. You and I, as children of the King, are able to freely approach God because our High Priest came to this earth, lived our life, understands our struggles, opened Himself up to the unrelenting gaze and powerful examination of the Word of God and passed through the fire unscathed, perfect, to become the sacrifice He as the High Priest offered to God for our reconciliation and redemption.

Approach the throne with boldness. Find the mercy and grace you need to live the life God has called you to live. Worship in wonder and awe in the awesome presence of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

The Journey of 1,000 miles begins with ...

I don’t know about you, but I have a problem with traveling. If there’s not much for me to do on the trip, I find myself wishing someone would have developed a transporter already so I could just beam from spot to spot instantly. I know my target destination, and I want to be there already. That’s why I travel with a laptop, iPod, books, anything to help me get my mind off the travel so I don’t focus on being “stuck,” especially in an airplane. (At least with driving there’s more to see, radio to play, and you can stop whenever you want to get out and stretch – especially important since I’m 6’4”.) On long trips on planes you find things to do to keep your mind off the lack of space to really stretch out the legs. On long trips by car I usually plan to have the time to stop whenever I feel like it, see sights, that sort of thing. Whatever it takes to break the monotony of travel. I would much rather instantly be there and skip the whole travel thing, but since we can’t do that yet, I manage.

What about living the Christian life? We know what our final destination is, and we know where we should be each day. Often we stop and ask ourselves how we’re doing. If you’re like me, it’s easy sometimes to be so focused on the destination that I forget that the trip isn’t as much about the destination as it is the journey to get there. Let me illustrate. A couple of years ago I drove with several folks from my church to New York on a mission trip. Pensacola, FL, to Matla, NY, is about 1400 miles, one way. 10 people in a church van pulling a trailer. Loads of fun. No, really. Well, loads of time sitting in a van with not much to do. Enough to make you go crazy if you’re not careful. Be fair. Think about the last time you drove on a trip that took 2 days hard driving. Remember? How do you make it that far without going crazy? I mean, on the road things begin to look the same mile after mile. One mile of pavement looks pretty much the same an any other mile. How do you acknowledge your progress? You establish goal points. It might be mile markers where some event happened to you on a previous trip or a city or exit that you like to take that has your favorite gas station or restaurant. It might be those all important rest areas for, you know, resting. Anyway, you approach the trip as a whole, but you break it down into smaller pieces so you can gauge how far you’ve gone and how far you have to go. That’s how you make it through a long trip.

The same is true with the Christian life. If you are so focused on the destination that you don’t have those intermediate win points to celebrate, you can find yourself feeling defeated or discouraged. And that’s the exact opposite of how our God of wonder desires us to live. The old saying goes that the journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step, and that’s true. Sometimes, though, I wish it continued to say that it begins with a single step … after step … after step … until you get there. We live in an age when everything is instant: microwaves to cook food faster, drive-thrus at restaurants, faster and faster internet, instant messaging – face it, our whole world in America is about getting it faster, bigger, better. If we apply that thinking to our Christian lives, though, we’ll find ourselves frustrated that we aren’t where we know we should be. And frustration can lead to discouragement, which can lead to defeat and surrender, an acceptance of where we are and a lack of desire to move forward. God never wants that life for us. He desires us to live in wonder and awe of Him, in victory and peace, full of hope. That’s why we’re encouraged to remember the things God has done for us and share them with others – so we see the victories we’ve had that fuel our passion and desire to keep moving forward, those victories that remind us of the greatness of God and drive our worship of Him.

Proverbs 3:18 (NCV) tells us that the way of the good (righteous) person is like the light of dawn, growing brighter and brighter until full daylight. If we see the full daylight at our destination (heaven with God), then our walk should constantly be moving towards full light. What our walk can’t do is go backward, towards more darkness, but move ever forward, little by little, until we reach the fullness of day. Think about the last time you watched the sun come up. It wasn’t like a cartoon, dark one second and full daylight the next, rather, it gradually got brighter, almost so slowly that you missed it unless you happened to close your eyes for a second to remember the previous moment, then open them again to see how much brighter the world was. It’s the gradual, continual movement forward that gets us to our final destination, and we must see the journey as a series of steps, not an instantaneous leap.

How do we keep going forward, then, when faced with a journey that seems to take so long? Proverbs 3 gives some more advice. Verse 25 encourages us to keep our focus on the things that are right, to look straight ahead at what is good, to stay on that path, always moving forward, and not to follow the rabbit trails and evil paths along the way that try to distract us (v.27). In other words, we keep our focus squarely on the One who is the embodiment of good, and we remember all the good that He has done. We remember that while there are times when we can’t seem to see the sky getting brighter, as long as we stay on the path that leads to Him we can’t help but experience brighter skies the farther we go. We have to help those around us, encouraging them as well in their journey, for the reality is that as God followers we are all headed in the same direction towards the same destination. We never travel alone. God is always with us, and so are all those who follow Him as we do. We have a responsibility to each other to encourage and support and even celebrate with each other as we move forward, step by step, towards that final destination, the fullness of daylight, the throne room of God. We have to keep taking steps forward.

So, don’t give up, don’t get discouraged if while you’re moving forward you aren’t where you think you should be in your Christian walk. Remember that you are on a long trip, and set up markers for yourself so you can gauge constant forward movement. Take the time to remember what God has done, reflect in wonder of Him, so you can see that the sky is indeed getting brighter, the mile markers are actually getting higher and higher in number, the destination closer and closer. Celebrate each and every victory along the way, being careful to always give thanks and praise to the One Who gives you the victories. And keep stepping forward, from step 1 to step 1,000,001, knowing that each step brings you closer home.