Wonder

“Burn off the dross, innocence captured again”
When Will I Ever Learn to Live in God- Van Morrison


Coming home from work yesterday I passed by several of the kids from the neighborhood as they were walking to the convenience store. I was struck by how much those boys had grown. In their early teens now, they were little boys when we moved into the neighborhood seven years ago.

I was struck by how many times I had passed my son with his friends at that age all waking to the store. The names have changed, but the living has not. My son now in his “late” teens has different friends and interest. He is becoming an adult with adult values, adult problems, interest, etc.

For a moment I was reminded how we loose our sense of wonder. “You must become like little children to receive the kingdom,” Jesus said. Is it possible to grow older in years and younger in heart? As the Bob Dylan song says, “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now”?

The answer is yes. The question is how?

To be honest I am not all that sure. I have always thought of trials as the way God “burns off the dross” in order to make us holy and pure. I still think that is true but…

Trials do make us more dependent on God and dependence is a childlike quality. Trials do focus us on what really matters. If embraced they do make us “stronger”. But is God after something bigger? I think so. Is it possible that one of His intentions is to make us wonder filled? Could it be He is restoring the innocence of the heart to see Him through the eyes of a child? Could it be that the Spirit is bringing us into the joy of Christ so that instead of our hearts going “woe is me,” we go “Awe!” with that breathless wonder that only children seem to know?


So I stop and watch the sun set even though end of the day duties call. I watch a bluebird on my deck bask in the morning sun even though the events of the pending day call me to urgency. I listen to that story that my co-worker shares even though there are “things to do” yelling at me from my desk.

And I take time to imagine. I imagine what it will be like to sit in my Mom and Dad's kitchen in a new heaven and new earth with all those wonderful people who have sat there through the years. And new faces as well. Jesus passing the chicken and saying “you remember that time?” I imagine my dad with memory now fully restored, my mom with knees no longer racked with arthritis pain. I hear Jesus say, “Here you want some more tea?” And we all laugh, and laugh, and laugh as Jesus pours water into glass and it becomes iced tea.

And I stop and am quiet and know that He is God. And I am filled… with wonder.