I continue my thoughts on wonder as I came across Isaiah 55 this morning:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isa. 55:8,9)
What’s the prophet saying? We follow a Savior we do not understand. We live with a God whose ways we do not fully comprehend. We worship a God who is often mysterious—too mysterious to fit our formulas for better living. He cannot be contained by our theological boxes or subtle unbelief. He is sovereign, but I cannot neatly define nor describe its manifestations. He is God. I am not.
I for one am glad. My goal is not to live by a set of precisely defined and defendable beliefs. My goal is to recover the wonder of my God.
I like how Michael Yaconelli in Dangerous Wonder put it, “I’m ready for a Christianity that ‘ruins’ my life, that captures my hearts and makes me uncomfortable.” (25)
I want to live with an increasingly reckless level of pure faith and reckless wonder. For without wonder we miss the very heart of what God is doing. Without wonder our faith has been reduced to a comfortable system of beliefs about God instead of an uncomfortable encounter with God. Perhaps one of the greatest threats of our faith may be people who say they believe in Jesus but who are no longer astonished and amazed by him.
Yaconelli goes on, “Take surprise out of faith and all that is left is dry and dead religion. Take away mystery from the gospel and all that is left is a frozen and petrified dogma. Lose your awe of God and you are left with an impotent deity. Abandon astonishment and you are left with meaningless piety. When religion is characterized by sameness, when faith is franchised, when the genuineness of our experience with God is evaluated by its similarities to other’s faith, then the uniqueness of God’s people is dead and the church is lost.” (29)
What wondrous thing is God doing today, that you might be missing?
Gail Johnsen 