Keeping A Deep Sense Of Awe And Wonder

Rev. Richard Smith

Read Exodus 3:1-12 Moses / Moses And The Burning Bush

The text tells us that when Moses saw the burning bush he said to himself, I’ll go over and see why the bush isn’t burning up.  The literal Hebrew for this passage is:  I will now turn aside and see this marvelous sight…why this bush is not burned.

We people of spiritual faith can’t help but have a keen sense of awe and wonder, as we intuitively and actually become conscious of the marvelous sights and experiences all around us; and within our ongoing human experiences.  Let’s reflect on this perception and sensibility.

It All Begins With Humility

A proper sense of awe begins with the realization that we, even as special creations of God, reside in a vast, wondrous, unbelievable universe.  We are a special part, but a small part of the magnificent creations of God. 

Just recently NASA reported that Voyager 1, launched in 1977, is now 15 billion miles from earth in interstellar space.  15 billion miles!!  This fact alone nudges my feelings of humility and wonder. 

We Are Blessed With God’s Gift Of The Human Body

There is no manmade machine that even comes close to the complexity and yet consistency of the human body.

• There’s the human heart.  It’s an organ only 4 inches in diameter but which beats 70 times a minute, 4200 times an hour, 100,00 times a day, 37 million times a year and rarely misses a beat;
• And there’s the fact that there are 100,000 miles of blood vessels running through the average adult body making sure that blood gets to all the cells and organs which need that blood…100,000 miles of blood vessels…astounding!
• And there’s the human brain, perhaps the most miraculous thing of all. Do you realize that our brains process more than a million messages a second? 

Do you feel the wonder of it all? 

There Are Everyday Miracles In Our Lives

Remember the words from Rogers and Hammerstein’s musical of 1958 Flower Drum Song?:

A hundred million miracles are happening every day

And those who say they don’t agree

Are those who do not hear or see

A hundred million miracles… happening every day.

Each and every day there are little miracles taking place in our lives; wonderful things God is doing in the midst of the routines of our lives; serendipitous moments that make all the difference in our lives. It’s the person who comes your way just when you need that person the most. It’s the song you hear on the radio just when you need the words of that song. It’s the phone call you receive just when you need that phone call. It’s the note which arrives in the mail and you can’t believe it came when it came. It’s the thought that pops into your head and gives you the wisdom you need for an important decision you’re having to make.

These things happen to you; they have to me! We should pause in real awe and give thanks!!

There Are The Wonders Of Changed Lives

John Peterson wrote some of the favorite hymns of all time.  But before he became a hymn writer, he had floundered morally and spiritually.  After coming back from World War II, he found his life changed by the love of God in Jesus Christ and then began to write church hymns.  Two of his hymns speak of miracles.  On of them has these words:

It took a miracle to put the stars in place.

It took a miracle to hang the world in space.

But when he saved my soul,

Cleansed and made me whole,

It took a miracle of love and grace.”

There Are Miracles Of God’s Strength

My father died in 1980, as many of you know, of pancreatic cancer at the age of 62.  As I look back on that last nine months of my father’s life, from the time he learned he had terminal cancer, I realize the marvelous thing God did my father; He gave him strength and courage to handle that awful disease.  My father was not an overtly spiritual man and so I really didn’t expect him to handle the disease and his dying like he did.  I saw the miracle of God’s divine presence giving my father strength beyond his strength, hope beyond his hope, and courage beyond his courage.

            And my guess is that you have seen the same.  There are those times in life when we realize that the only way we made it through was by God’s special presence.  Such strength and such courage amidst life’s most difficult moments cannot be attributed to us; it has to be attributed to God.  One Christian thinker calls this “the miracle of God’s sufficiency.”       

A Noteworthy Conclusion

I’ve shared before this segment from Walt Whitman’s epic Leaves of Grass.   It’s titled, Miracles. 

WHY! who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love—or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with my mother,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds—or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down—or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring;
Or whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best—mechanics, boatmen, farmers,
Or among the savans—or to the soiree—or to the opera,
Or stand a long while looking at the movements of machinery,
Or behold children at their sports,
Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old woman,
Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial,
Or my own eyes and figure in the glass;
These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring—yet each distinct, and in its place.
To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same;
Every spear of grass—the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all that concerns them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.
To me the sea is a continual miracle;
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the ships, with men in  them, What stranger miracles are there?