Wonder: Remembering How to Trust God Like Children
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.