Journal
With Christmas 2025 wrapped and décor back in storage, can we continue to let the wonder and miraculous birth of Jesus resonate and shape how we live and work throughout 2026?
“Wonder” is the word God has given me in 2026.
When the shepherd saw the angels break into a chorus in the skies proclaiming the birth of the Son of God, whom we would come to know as Christ Jesus, they were initially frightened, thinking them ghosts. Why did the angels appear to lowly shepherds who had no significant influence? Why hadn’t they appeared to influential leaders, priests, and kings? I believe it was because the shepherds were paying attention. They needed a solution and an answer to the crazy, uncertain world they lived in. They were shepherds who needed hope.
Are you a shepherd in God’s kingdom on earth today?
As artists, you are caring for His sheep through creativity in media, entertainment, music, art, and leadership opportunities. Using your artistic talents and skills, your artistry provides a type of emotional and spiritual nourishment and clothing for audiences and their minds, which affects hearts and, in turn, shapes what we say, believe, and choose. At the perplexing sight of the host of angels, the shepherds didn’t demand credentials, nor did they need clarification that what they were seeing was real and significant to motivate them to search for the location where the manager held the Savior of their souls. They went ahead in trust and curiosity – in wonder.
Wonder is not weakness.
Wonder creates boldness in leadership. It is an inward knowledge that the unshakeable promises God has given us are true and that He is trustworthy. But the way God delivers them is never how we think. It reflects a creative God who supernaturally delivers His people and word. Knowing His nature allows us to trust in His wonder. It is a type of humility. Trusting in the miraculous is not the absence of leadership, but it is a confident knowledge that God is in control when things don’t make sense. The shepherds didn’t arrive at the manger with strategic business plans, spreadsheets, or three goals formulated by AI. They came in pure, unfiltered awe.
God achieves His most significant accomplishments through curiosity.
The three Wise Men were the next ones to find our Savior by observing a curious, moving star. They bowed before him, laying down their crowns at the feet of a child singled out by the heavenly sign. They came from wealth and influence, offering kingly gifts in a bold counter-cultural declaration of worship and wonder. Endless Bible stories are filled with curious, strange, and miraculous events. The stories of Noah, Moses, Abraham, Esther, David, and the birth of Jesus, along with the miracles He performed while He walked on the earth, should give us pause and prompt us to walk confidently in wonder. God takes the natural and performs the supernatural. He is not a God who lays out all details of His plans, but He asks us to trust Him in the nonsensical. The shepherds and the Wise Men came with open hearts, bold faith, and expectant joy, and they witnessed the miraculous glory of God.
As 2026 begins with a rush, choose to turn off your screens more often this year to ponder and walk in the miraculous wonder of God. Turn down the volume on your need to understand and let curiosity and the wonder of God lead you into bold new places. The shepherds showed up. Will you?
“Everyone was gripped with great wonder and awe, and they praised God, exclaiming, “We have seen amazing things today!” (Luke 5:26 NLT)
Journal
My brother said he never wanted to be rich when he grew up. He just wanted enough! Enough, however, isn’t attainable, no matter how much we may try. At Christmas, we get constant enticements through commercials and social media blasting our screens with what someone else has and we don’t (but should have), or what we “deserve” to get for Christmas, and our loser status if we don’t get it. The noise can be overwhelming. In our human mind, we get depressed that ‘the good life” – getting enough – will always be out of reach. When we think only as human beings, we stay stuck inside our insatiable appetites of want. We keep ourselves trapped in the relentless gnawing itch of desire, which leaves festering wounds of unhappiness and self-loathing.
Are you seeking happiness or joy?
Happiness is temporary because it can only give you a physical feeling based on false, warped cultural truths. Joy, however, is eternal. It comes from a supernatural, powerful, and perfect God. And the wonder of it is that joy is attainable. It’s a Christmas gift you can receive immediately. It comes wrapped in contentment found in the birth and sacrificial life of Jesus Christ. It’s the gift of a life that is not subject to this world and eternal places where the relentless desire itch is satisfied. The Christmas gift of eternal joy can only be attained by choosing heart knowledge and not head knowledge. When we believe in God’s unwavering truth, our attitude shifts. It’s a mindset change that allows our heart to lead. It means believing in the awe and wonder of God, and its transformative gift. When that happens, personal desires become secondary and aren’t the priority. Our focus shifts to what God desires for us and for His Kingdom purposes: “His will be done on earth.” The Father’s desires lead us to joy found outside what is being advertised on our screens, which is empty, temporary happiness. Instead of having an appetite for the things of this world, we can have an appetite for His Kingdom living and choices.
Will it require the abandonment of cultural lifestyles or desires we once thought important?
It may. Often, where we are today is not the perfect place God has for us, and there may be suffering while untangling our lives from the grip of our failures and selfish desires. Being willing to abandon our plans for God’s better plan leads to a place of the unknown – wonder. It leads to contentment when there is nothing, and a joy that is inexplicable when it looks hopeless. It’s a place of safety that doesn’t make sense. When we are willing to surrender ourselves, He gives us the desires of our hearts, and it comes in profound ways we never saw coming. Worldly desires and choices change, and what we thought we wanted shifts toward desiring what God wants first to accomplish in our life, and to what pleases Him most – the desire to know Him. He becomes the God who gives enough.
Are you living a life of wonder and wanting to know more of God?
The truth is, we aren’t just physical beings – we are spiritual beings! We have a soul that will live forever when our physical body turns to dust. To know God, we must believe Him. And we must believe in the miraculous because God is a miracle God! We must believe that what He told us and is recorded in the Bible is true – all of it – the miracles of healing and restoration, the obstacles, challenges, and battles that were overcome, and all the disruptive, sacrificial choices that were made that changed the narrative so that God’s purposes could be fulfilled. There is no compromising or “living on the fence” with God. In our world today, it’s essential to trust in a living, supernatural God who sent the Son as a baby and who achieved His mission on a cross to save us for all eternity. He is the joy giver. As a child believes in all the wonders of childhood with unabashed enthusiasm, can we remember to embrace the wonder of who God is in our lives?
This Christmas, shift into a full-out childlike wonder of God.
Jesus said in Matthew 18:3, “…unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” This Christmas, shift your mind to your heart. Think and live in the spiritual and supernatural wonder of our Creator, leaving your natural mind and the limiting physical world behind. Remember that God operates in the miraculous. His power is seen in the wonder. He parted seas, helped a small, skinny boy to defeat a giant, and allowed three men thrown in a fiery furnace to walk out unscathed. God brings protection and provision endlessly. II Corinthians 5:7 says, “For we live by faith, not by sight.”
God surprises require us to stop thinking practically and start living in the unknown.
Living by faith means we never stop asking, but we also have to make sure we don’t cover our ears and stop listening. His directives can come through the Bible, or in prayer, or a trusted prophetic revelation. God requires us to trust Him even when the waiting seems long and hopeless. His miracles come in unexpected ways, from unexpected people, and in unusual places. We stop thinking with our intellect and start looking for God’s surprises. Get excited that you can’t attain the desires of your heart in your own strength. God can. His gifts of wonder are always aligned with His perfect purposes. Proverbs 9:10 says, “The awe (wonder – sometimes called ‘fear’ because God’s ways are strange and inexplicable) of God is the beginning of Wisdom.” He is an ever-present, wonder-working God. Be ready for God to amaze you in profound ways above all you have ever thought or dreamed.
This Christmas, may your eyes be filled with wonder – a magnetic fascination that brings you eternal joy and wisdom.
Inner Views
BIO:
Julie Ann has been a successful professional artist for more than twenty years, ten of which were with the UK’s leading fine art agency. Her oil paintings are bought and exhibited worldwide. As a Christian, she also paints prophetically and is a live performance artist, using her abilities to help raise charity funds. She has painted prophetically at many events and has just completed a commission for the official image for the 2025 US National Day of Prayer, which will be distributed across America and the world. Julie Ann’s book, ‘Stand’ features nine paintings depicting the miracles of World War II, accompanied by a prophetic message. These WWII paintings are being toured widely and have been exhibited inside Windsor Castle and St Mary’s Woolnoth church in London (the famous church of Sir John Newton, writer of ‘Amazing Grace’) to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings. She currently lives in Dorset, England, with her writer husband, Damian, and has two grown-up daughters.
INNER VIEW
Kathleen Cooke: I was honored to meet you at Windsor Castle recently, see your fantastic artwork, and hear how you listen to God’s voice in what you paint. Can you share what He has taught you about obedience even when it doesn’t immediately make sense?
Julie Ann Scott: 8 Years ago, God commissioned me to paint nine large oil paintings on WWII and how the Lord saved us of the greatest evil by being called to national prayer seven times by King George VI. When putting this work out at a women’s prayer conference in Windsor Castle, I noticed an unfinished area on the painting of Roosevelt and Churchill. I knew the painting well and was perturbed that it looked wrong. I then consulted my book on the exhibition called ‘STAND’ & saw that the piece was indeed very finished at the time it was photographed for the book.
A few days later, I was speaking on the work at a Church in London on the evening of the 80th Anniversary of Day. A young woman approached me at the end, saying she felt a very strong sense of the Holy Spirit, and the Lord brought her attention to an area that looked unfinished by Roosevelt’s elbow on the painting of him and Churchill talking. Now I was listening. She said she saw a woman’s face. Sure enough, I looked closer, and suddenly, I could see it. Having just come from a strategic prayer summit at Windsor Castle which brought together U.K. and U.S.A. women, I knew God was highlighting the fact that He was raising women up in this hour for such a time as this. Just like on D-Day, England and America would stand together.
That night, I recalled this to a friend, and the following morning, she sent me a photograph with a message saying, “Is this the woman in the painting under Roosevelt’s elbow?”
It was indeed the woman, and her name was Eleanor Roosevelt. Unbelievable to you? We can expect miracles when we step out and obey God when He leads us and when we wholeheartedly do it with a fully surrendered heart. Go find out!
Kathleen: As artists, it is always challenging to trust God with our influence and success, and especially with our finances. What has God taught you about relying on Him and trusting that He will provide all our needs?
Julie Ann: At age 40, God told me he wanted me to be an artist. So, I taught myself to paint in one year. (more…)
