May We Never Lose Our Wonder

Wonder: noun

1. a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.

When I think of the word wonder I think of a kid walking into Magic Kingdom at Disney World for the first time. Their faces express an overwhelming feeling of awe that this beautiful place they’ve heard about for all this time is actually real. When expectations and reality match, that’s wonder. 

I experienced the most wonder in my relationship with God at the beginning, when I realized that Jesus wasn’t too good to be true, but that He was real and He cared personally for me. The first few years of relationship with Jesus were filled with questions, curiosity and an insatiable desire to know God intimately. Wonder existed in the mystery of God. How could He be all loving and completely just? What did it mean to experience His presence or have the Holy Spirit living inside of me? Curiosity and wonder seem to go hand in hand.

But in the years since I gave my life to Jesus, somewhere along the way, the beauty and mystery of The Cross became “normal.” I got really good at talking about God, I experienced pain that didn’t line up with what I knew about God and curiosity turned to skepticism. Faith became a box checked rather than a relationship pursued. A faith like that can only go on for so long. 

Have you been there? Maybe you’re there now. 

I find comfort in knowing that the Israelites had the same tendency I do, to forget that God is a God of wonders. Time after time God was faithful to them, rescuing them from their captor and delivering them, but shortly thereafter they rebelled, complained or just straight-up forgot who God revealed Himself to be.

In His mercy, God’s solution to the Israelites forgetfulness is the same solution He offers to us: remembrance. The night God delivered the Israelites from Egypt, before His final act that would deliver them from slavery, He gave them the Passover. He told all of the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb and put the blood on the doorpost of their houses as a sign. God would pass over those houses, not killing the first born as He did to all of Egypt that night. From that night on God declared the Passover meal, a sacrificial lamb, as a memorial for God’s mercy towards Israel. That’s a practice that is still celebrated by Jewish people today. Why? To remember. 

To remember the wondrous rescue mission that God went on to deliver the Israelites from the Egyptians. As followers of Jesus, we have a similar act of remembrance, communion. “And He took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). 

We practice remembrance because we’re prone to forget. It’s no surprise to God that I’ve lost the wonder of a simple faith, but remembrance is how I’m beginning to regain it. 

A few weeks ago I went to the mountains with some college friends. We sat around one morning telling stories of the silly things we did in college and worshiped together to songs none of us had listened to in at least 5 years. It took me back to sitting on the floor of my friend’s dirty living room floor, worshiping God, full of wonder, gratitude and awe at who He was. 

My prayer for you is that you too, could remember significant moments and have wonder restored through remembrance. Wide eyed and mystified, may we be just like a child, staring at the beauty of our King. He’s beautiful, sometimes you just have to look up and remember. 

“May we never lose our wonder

Wide eyed and mystified

May we be just like a child 

Staring at the beauty of our King”

— Wonder | Bethel Music