journey onWord with us

Pressed down by the drumming din of the everyday and sometimes backbreaking burden of our cares and suffering, we lose the sense of awe and wonder we once possessed.  It was hard-wired into us at the time of conception.  It is a truth of the image of God in which we were made.  It was most true of us as children, when our cares were so small and our eyes and imagination were so big.  It becomes a victim of the process of “maturing” and repeated exposure to the responsibilities and burdens of adulthood.  When we are young, what we see is so small but how we see it is so expansive.  As we arrive at our middleish years, what we see and bear is so expansive, but how we see it is so ordinary and confining.

I was reminded of this truth while reading a passage in Romans during my lent focus this year – “renewing my mind.”  I wish there was time and space to tell the story of how I ended up there, but suffice it say I began considering chapter 8 verses 5-11 and what they spoke into my desire to renew my mind.  These verses speak of the perils of a life and mind controlled by the sin nature.  They speak of the sin nature being hostile to God; how I simply cannot please Him if I allow my sin nature to control me.  It was truth that hit the bullseye of my lent focus with pinpoint accuracy.

I have adopted a practice when reading specific verses (or short passages of scripture).  I typically read backward and forward at least a few verses to ensure I have the proper context.  I have routinely found value in doing so.  At times I am reminded of how easy it is to take or use scripture out of context.  At others my understanding, application or experience of scripture deepens, because of the truth that immediately precedes or follows.  I found the latter when I chose to read forward from verse eleven.

“Mark, you are not forced to do what your sinful nature urges — pleads with — you to do.”  (verse 12 personalized)  “And your choice is literally a life and death thing.” (the same for verse 13)  How could I stop reading?!

A break in the text happens at the end of verse 17 in the New Living Translation.  The final sentence of that verse says, “But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.”  It seemed a proper stopping point.  I had wandered a whole five verses from my target passage.  But something (or Someone) suggested I continue.  Whether it was the unsettledness that “we must also share his suffering” naturally creates or the heading of the next section of verses (The Future Glory), I chose to read on.  Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.”  Ahhhh, yes!  That is our great hope, right?!  The drumming din and sometimes backbreaking burdens of our here and now will one day be things of our forgotten former selves, life and world.  God completely destroys this fallen and broken world and replaces it with the one He intended it to be.  Read on, Mark!

For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay.
Romans 8:19-21

It would likely have looked like I was “having a moment” had someone walked into the room as I finished reading the final words of those verses.  I was a million miles from my sin nature, caught up in the glory of the omnipotent Creator!  Creation, in all its splendor, is being held against its will.  The stunning panorama of the Grand Canyon, the macro lens brilliance of a dragonfly’s wings, the fathomless complexity of the human brain, the breathtaking beauty of a newborn baby’s fingers and toes … all mere shadows of God’s creative power.  Awe-inspiring creation which is wholly incomplete and being held against its will.

I pray you will join me in rekindling the sense of awe and wonder you possessed as a child.  Open your eyes and ears to the miraculously specific ways God enters into your everyday.  Be still.  Abide.  Breathe in God’s aromatic goodness.  Stand still long enough to take notice.  Flush the filters which obscure His presence all around you, which cause you to live moderately and carefully.  Be bold.  Be courageous.  Get lost in the wonder.  Let Him.  Look for Him.

Reclaim your childlike faith and become awash in wonder.