Beauty Mystery Wonder
I believe we need a greater appreciation for beauty | mystery | wonder in the church today. Pastor and author Brian Zahnd tackles this subject in his book, “Beauty Will Save The World.”
Quoting Zahnd,
The tragedy of growing up is not that we put aside childishness, but that we lose the capacity for childlike wonder. As children we dream of finding our own real-life adventure… and we end up finding a job. Adventure is set aside for a career and wonder is the casualty… The loss of wonder is what we experience as boredom, and boredom is a real problem.
Oh the vapor of it all
It’s a chasing of the wind
The powers of the earth so pale and thin
We will set our hearts on you again
Heaven taunts the hearts of men
We can feel it from within
The beauty of it all
The mystery
The swelling of a voice
A rising sea
Holy
You oh God are Holy
Trees clap their hands for you
Oceans they dance for you
You are holy
Oh the mystery of it all
I can never peer within
I’ll never find the words or understand
The fullness of a God
Become a man
Holy
You oh God are Holy
Trees clap their hands for you
Oceans they dance for you
You are holy
Infinite and holy
A billion suns rise for you
Clouds paint the skies for you
Mountains stand tall for you
Valleys bow down to you
Everything rising to
Sing all our songs for you
Holy
The impossible and holy
Kings become fools for you
Kingdoms to ruins for you
Vapor finds ground in you
Music finds sound for you
Everything rising
Everything rising
Come like dawn
Like waves
Like sunlight
Bring this world to life
Come like rain
Like breath
Like springtime
Bring this world to life
How about you? Where are you discovering / noticing / becoming more aware of the beauty and mystery and wonder of God’s Kingdom?
I am a husband, father, pastor, leader & reader. I love God, love people & love life.
I think the biggest childish wonder I’ve had lately is toward people. Usually it’s that I’m fascinated by how trusting God everything just kind of flows and I never have any worries. Lately people are the biggest wonder and they surprise me a lot in good ways and bad. For the past month I’ve been telling a close friend about certain feelings towards a person and my childish wonder went through the roof when I found out that he responds to how I’ve been feeling even though he was never told. For an entire month I thought she was telling him how I felt and then suddenly they both told me that wasn’t the case. I’m still completely baffled by it, it’s like he knows exactly what to do and I never had to say anything. That and the small kids I’ve been around at church cling and hug like I was a close family member. I’ve never had so much wonder about how I could go from never being hugged, always getting negative attention, being told I was hated and was worth nothing, to all of the exact opposite things in just one year. When God works miracles like that nothing ever seems boring and everything is very freeing. My life went from severe pain all the time to the point I wanted to die every day to being happy and carefree and even the things I hated don’t bother me at all anymore. Can’t say there isn’t still pain but even then God’s wonder always kicks in right when I need it. So he never really does get boring and no one should ever be so serious that they forget what it was like to be young.
“All the beauty that’s been lost before wants to find us again.”
—lyrics from the song Ordinary Love by U2
Noticing that so much of life is about just showing up. To be present to God is a matter of attentiveness. To him. To his beauty. To his wonder. To his creation. Whether it’s taking intentional time to get quiet with him, or just noticing his work, his glory, his face in the faces of those I see- I’m worried less about what I’m doing for him, and more content to notice his work all about me. And I love it. I’m at rest and nestled into a safe place with him.