I fear we have lost our wonder. Sight. Common sense. We’ve so numbed our mind with meaningless things we don’t stand in awe of reality anymore. We look, but we don’t see.
G.K. Chesterton rightly said, “the world will never starve for want of wonders, but for want of wonder.”
We fear you have stopped wondering about the most wonderful thing in the world. Not only does God exist, but he has communicated to us in a way we understand. God wrote a book, for you. And we want you to wonder about it, and about him once again.
We May Be Without Wonder but God Is Not Without Witness
Who is he? You say, “I don’t know him, and I don’t even know if he exists.”
Yes, you do!
Friend, you know him. Deep down, you’re aware of his existence, but it’s possible that your disinterest in him makes you unaware of his presence (Romans 1:20-21).
“How do I know him?” You ask. Look outside, and keep looking. What do you see?
What do you see through the crackling fire, mountain ranges, foaming sea, and green hillsides? Something of him, something of the Unseen—You see his footprints and fingerprints all over your world.
Why is there color? Or beauty? Or order? Have you ever wondered?
Because someone magnificently beautiful created the world.
Do you ever look out the window on the way to vacation? Why do you gape at the mountains rising out of the earth and feel so small and yet warmly safe in their shadow?
Because a great big Someone who is as stable and trustworthy and immovable as they are made them, and you know something of his grandeur by his mountains.
Why do you run from the ocean waves when they get too big?
Because you know it’s not tame. Surely its Maker isn’t either. Yet you play in its tide even as a child. Because the Maker is patient, slow to anger, and kind (Exodus 34:6).
You rush about your day taking for granted that the sun rose. It rose in the sky, not because it happened to go that way, not because you deserve it to stay on its course, not because it wanted to, but because it obeyed. It obeyed the voice of its King who loves you regardless of whether you know him or acknowledge him. It rose because he’s good. He’ll light up the whole world each day regardless if we worship him, because he is Love itself (Matthew 5:44-45).
Have you ever wondered that the sun comes up every day? Every day! Never misses one; never has. Why? Have you ever thought about it? What if there’s a person who commands it to—who is incapable of forgetting? What if he does it because he loves you, and wants you to see how constant and unchanging he is?
God has not left himself without witness in the world. He has a thousand testimonies ringing out from his world, from the tide, the mountains, the sun, the stars—they’re all telling you who he is. And the point of them all is to make you say, Where is he? Where can I find the one who has done all this? And how can I know him?
One Witness We Don’t Like
But we don’t want to find him.
See there’s one witness to him in the world that is our enemy. We wake up and this witness taunts us. He’s called Conscience. We wake up to him every day as much as we wake up to the testimonies ringing throughout our wonderful world.
He tells us about God, too (Romans 2:15). We have the sneaking sense—and the aggravating whispers—murmuring that the majestic, beautiful, faithful, fearful, Being who’s responsible for all the world surely isn’t happy with us.
If we’re alone for long enough or silent and still enough, the voice of Conscience gets louder.
Regret, Shame, and Anxiety settle in with him. What we ought to have done, failed to do, or did erroneously starts to haunt us. So, we silence that voice of Conscience at all costs.
If we’re honest, we all have a conscience that tells us that we are at odds with God. We’ve done wrong (Romans 3:10). But here’s the catch: We’ve done wrong against someone.
That Someone didn’t want our relationship to remain rifted, though by default we’re all born into this world separated from him. So he did something.
He wrote to us.
God’s Loving Initiative
God wrote his goodness and invisible qualities into his creation, screaming for our attention. He wanted us to see him for who he is.
But he kept writing. He wrote his law upon our hearts and minds by giving us a conscience, so that we might come to see ourselves for who we really are—sinners before a holy and good God, in need of salvation (Romans 2:15).
He wrote again—this time in words. God told us outright who he is. He chose one group of people—the people of Israel, descendants of Abraham—as his own and revealed himself to them. He told the Israelites that he would come one day and expose himself to the whole world, fixing that rift between God and man, providing healing for our consciences and the way to know him. He told us that he will make the way for us to know the one who made waterfalls and wildebeests and all the people you love.
God knew we would never find our way to the Invisible Wonder behind our world, and if we did, it would be our death because we are bad and he is good, and so we could not dwell together. So he started telling us about himself, through prophets and kings and poets. He told them what he wanted to say to us, and gave them visions of his glory.
But we kept ignoring him.
So, he sent more prophets.
We still ignored him.
Did he give up? Did he shrink back behind the veil, resigned to his invisibility?
No, he decided to introduce himself. If we would not accept his Word, we might accept him if he came to us personally. So, he came in a form we would understand—as a man.
He came to testify to the truth. All that he was, all that he said as he walked in our shoes on our earth, lived out for us what the Invisible Wonder is really like (John 1:14). The man Jesus Christ is God in the flesh who came to tell us about our Creator.
So would we accept God’s Word—his Living Word?
No. We were too blind. We were too selfish; it made our consciences sting too sharply.
So, we killed him. We crucified the Word of God made flesh.
But wonder of wonders—this was part of his plan all along—to make the way for us to know God (Acts 2:23).
Someone had to suffer pain for all those ways we have said no to and shook our fist at our Creator. He didn’t want us to perish (2 Peter 3:9). So he came and paid for our sins himself (1 Peter 2:24).
And he rose from the dead. For surely the God who authored spring to always follow fall, could not stay dead. Every winter has an end, he told us in his world. We know it’s true. He rose from the dead.
Anyone who would take God at his Word—believe that the man Jesus in human flesh was God himself, and believe in him for the forgiveness of their sins, could know God again. He is the way, the truth, and the life. No one can know God apart from Jesus (John 14:6).
If we stay ignorant, silence that conscience, reject God’s Word, we will suffer in hell for all the things our conscience condemns us for. And it’s a fearful thing to think of what the Ocean Former and Fire Creator would have in store for those who scorned his presence and gifts and provision of salvation for their whole lives.
Will You Believe the Wonderful News?
God has given you sight of his invisible nature in the creation you see. He has given you insight into your own soul and your need of him through your conscience. He has given you his Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer for your sins, cleanse your conscience, and give you new birth so that you can call the Invisible Wonder, Father. Will you believe his Word today?
Turn away from sin, from all the lesser wonders of the world to the wonderful Maker. C.S. Lewis said,
We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13 ESV). It’s truly wonderful news—will you accept it?