Ever Wonderer...

It has been awhile since I have had the opportunity to sit back and ponder then write about the main issues that have made me think. As I sit here staring at this screen listening to some Country music I wonder. I wonder how many people care what I write about, how many people actually read these posts, and wonder if, yet again, I can make a difference in this world with just this one life. To me wonder is something I find myself being caught up in. My mother calls it daydreaming, my teachers call it not-paying-attention, but in my head, in my life its full fledged wonder. Wonder is a marvelously simple thing in life and a great thing; something that should be practiced often.

I pose the popular question, Have you ever? Thought just in wonder of the Creation around you, of the complexity of the small fingers, eyes, brain, cardiovascular system allowing you to read what is present on your screen at the moment? Have you ever just said "WOW" because there were no complex terms to describe your awe at that present time? Wonder drifts into my dreams, into my future aspirations, and in to my daily thinking of God.

As a college student, Christian, and human being with a nurturing personality, relationships are everything in my life and I struggle with people, especially those training for a relational based ministry or occupation, that are so focused on framing their God in a box and understanding every detail that they seemingly lose sight of their goals and intentions. This KILLS wonder. (Which can cause relational strain or harm along the way to themselves or others.) I firmly believe that this is a trust issue between God and man. Man not trusting in God to the point of having a feeling of need to learn everything about God and look good doing it I might add, granted this is a radical position. For most people, figuring out God, is just a pride issue to obtain and share information like a book, not to point to God but to point out how much he/she knows. This is not always the case either and I do not have this all figured out, that's why I write a blog not a published website, just food for thought. 

Recently I finished the book titled Blue Like Jazz authored by Donald Miller. While reading through this book and spending careful time in each chapter Miller's thoughts penned on those pages felt as if they were taken from a transcript of my mind, thoughts, and ideas. One of those ideas and thoughts were captured in this quote found in chapter seventeen titled "Worship: The Mystical Wonder" saying:

        "Too much of our time is spent trying to chart God on a grid, and too little is spent allowing our hearts to feel awe. By reducing Christian spirituality to formula, we deprive our hearts of wonder."

Miller then goes on to describe the complexity of the trinity and at the end he just accepts the fact that understanding all of the trinity and why its that why is too much for his brain to comprehend. This to him, and me, is a marvelous thought. Knowing that a big God came up with something so simple, complex, and profound is incredible and should allow for wonder.

Miller ends chapter seventeen with an even more profound and loud paragraph than the previous one mentioned. Right at the end of the chapter he writes this:

"At the end of the day, when I am lying in bed and I know the chances of any of our theology being exactly right are a million to one, I need to know that God has things figured out, that if my math is wrong we are still going to be okay. And wonder is that feeling we get when we let go of our silly answers, our mapped out rules that we want God to follow. I don't think there is any better worship than WONDER."

The feelings of this last semester for my life and story could not be better captured in words than in what you see above this line. I have the belief and knowledge that God is control of my life and has a plan for me (Ps. 139) and that my friends is something to just sit and wonder about.