The Wonder of God

Sometimes I am completely awed by God. I'm not talking about an esoteric experience, some worship service that wowed me and caused me to feel convicted so I sway my arms and feel tingly. We can lift our hands and God designed our bodies to feel tingly at certain times, but I'm not talking about worshiping in the emotion of the moment. I'm talking about being awed by God, about giving in to the wonder of it all.

Some time ago I lived in southern California. When I was there I would sometimes venture off on a Saturday to the Angeles National Forest to hike around, see nature and talk with God. I remember one afternoon, I parked my truck and began a 'full steam ahead' traipse up the side of the foothill. The air felt less smoggy here, the green trees stood high above the soft ground and I was at one with nature! I found myself having to step over rocks and crawl under trees. I think I broke a couple spiderwebs and got a more than a little frustrated that there was not a path for me to walk on.

After I had ventured on for another ten minutes or so, I came upon a dirt walkway just as two teenagers were passing by (with a look of surprise at this man suddenly emerging from the foliage). I dusted myself off and headed in the opposite direction of them and within just a few minutes I was back in the parking lot, my truck about 100 feet to my right. I stopped momentarily and considered the fact that had I looked for a path, I probably would have found it. What compounded things further was when I turned around to look up the trail from where I had come, there was a sign right behind me that said "Stay on the Trail! Rattlesnake Population!".

I can't help but think there's a certain, though imperfect, analogy in all this. Here we are, as believers, in this love relationship with the Creator of the universe. The very One who spoke and the galaxies formed and stood at attention is the same One who spoke and saw you 'poured out like milk and curdled like cheese' (Job 10:10). He knows the end from the beginning and He is better acquainted with your life than you are. So why do we sometimes do things our own way? Like my fateful walk that day, our lives are better lived on a path. When we wander off on our own and do things outside of God's will (I'm talking sin and disobedience here), we will eventually face the rattlesnakes. (Though it's true in the forest rattlesnakes will inevitably cross the real dirt path. This is why it's an imperfect analogy.) We're much better off following the dirt road that God has given us. Some might argue that God doesn't give us dirt, but let's not forget what God made man from in the first place. Which brings about another great analogy. If we think of man as being 'from the dirt', then we can think of our path as being comprised of other people from the dirt. We can see this two ways.

First, we can see this as being the body of believers. We are all in this life together, struggling and taking up our crosses daily. In that sense, we are all individual granules of dirt on the same path, mustering up whatever courage and bravado we can. And like the real dirt path, some granules are further along in the walk (in age or in spiritual maturity) and others bring up the rear. Unlike the real dirt path, we can change positions on the spiritual one. We can grow closer to the Lord and more like Him, as well as the fact that we all age and naturally move up the path that way.

Second, we can see the path comprised of people of the dirt in the sense that we can learn from people who have gone before us. It's guaranteed that we're all going to make mistakes. It's also pretty certain that we'll make some of the same mistakes the saints who have gone on before us have made (and how many of us make the same mistakes we ourselves made years, months or days ago?). For instance, when we look at the lives of David and Bathsheba and the loss of their baby, we learn that there are consequences for our sin. We also learn that God is ever-forgiving. (May we never take this for granted) The different turns, hills and rainstorms in our path can be compared to the Lord's sovereign testing and trials.

Another analogy about paths: Near my home is a natural area called the Volo Bog. It is a beautiful chunk of land with thousands of stories to tell. When you go there, you have to stay on a path. The bog is a marshy, acidic swamplike foundation and if you were to walk into it, you may not get back out. As you arrive there, you can't see the bog. You have to take a trail to it and then there is a boardwalk that you venture out on. In the late spring and summer, there are fantastic smells and animal noises and insects of every variety. In the winter, there is quiet.

When snow is on the ground, you will see footprints of various critters and dead cattails jutting out of the bog. Though equally as beautiful but in a different way, the Volo Bog appears cold. You can still venture out on the boardwalk and wind your way through the forest like you can in warmer periods, but like all of northern Illinois at winter, it's dead.

So it is with our lives and this path I keep mentioning. When we stay on the path, it goes well with us. Jeremiah 7:23 says "Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you." If we take God up on His offer for a love relationship (that offer being His only begotten son nailed to a cross as an atonement for all who may accept His gift), who are we to make our own rules and go our own way? The wonder of God. Consider this: God creates a world and a race (human) and that race chooses to rebel. He gives them a free will because, without that, any acts of love toward Him or other humans is rendered meaningless. But He has standards of holiness that man doesn't attain to, and so God tells them there has to be a blood sacrifice to atone for their sins. Then He sends down His son, Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man. At the young age of 33, after only about 3 years of public ministry, Jesus is crucified and this becomes the permanent sacrifice. No more going to the altar with a lamb, a knife and something to start a fire with. Jesus finished that once and for all. The curtain that separated man from God in the holy of holies is torn and Christ Almighty (for He is God, too) is our mediator.

The wonder of God, that He could love us that much!

My story about the Angeles National Forest has a happy ending. After I expressed my gratitude to God for protecting me from the rattlesnakes, I made my way back up the trail. The main trail swooped up around a bank of trees and veered back into the forest. However, there was a tiny splinter of dirty path that went straight ahead. I decided to be adventureous and take the splinter. (After all it was a path and I was planning on staying on it, per demands of the aforementioned sign).

The splinter led to the edge of the foothill which overlooked the valley below. It was an incredible view. If I had not driven from my apartment in Burbank a short time ago, I never would have guessed suburbia was even within a day's drive. As I stood and slowly panned the vista with my head, taking in the scenery and enjoying the sound of birds and my own heartbeat, I became very aware of God's grandeur. This moment, with its valley and evergreens and soaring hawks, was but a thumbnail sketch. Only God, the One true God, could create something like this that was proof of His existence both from a distance and had I gone right down to the smallest bug on the smallest leaf. As I stood there, I felt a calm come over me and I prayed silently. (I think I could have shouted and it would have gone unnoticed by passersby, but this seemed like God's sanctuary and that just didn't come across as necessary). Scottish preacher Thomas Guthrie said:

"So distinguished by a Divine wisdom, power and goodness, are God's

works of creation and providence, that all nature, by the gentle voices of

her skies and streams, of her fields and forests, as well as by the roar of

breakers, the crash of thunder, the rumbling earthquake, the fiery volcano,

and the destroying hurricane, echoes the closing sentences of this angel

hymn, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, the whole earth is full

of His glory!"

In this day and age with our doppler systems and our TV channels and websites devoted to the weather, we have somehow taken the 'God' out of 'acts of God'. We now analyze the storm, predict when it will hit us and air TV specials on how best to prepare for it. When was the last time you walked in the rain, even with an umbrella, not because you had to but because you wanted to? Have you ever sat still on a warm night and listened to the crickets? Have you ever wondered who taught them the song that they play? I think of Job 39:19-20 where God is saying, "Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane? Do you make him leap like the locust? His majestic snorting is terrible."

We should, along with the angels, be saying "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, the whole earth is full of His glory!".

Because it is.