When We Awake to Astonishment

Probably the most astonishing sight I’ve seen lately is video of my husband hanging out with sharks. 

We spent eight days on an archipelago of 330 islands that make up the country of Fiji. Dan is scuba diving as I sit in our private yard with the “Beware: Coconuts Falling” sign on the largest palm tree, and the hammock and the blue sea beyond.

We weren’t long in Fiji before we discovered some rather astonishing things. Have you ever marveled at the beauty beneath the seas? Or observed a blue starfish?

Have you ever kayaked through a mangrove canopy? Or walked through a Fijian village and been high-fived by children crying, “Bula!” (which means, “hello” and “welcome”)?

Have you experienced connection with people from a very far and different culture who laugh at the same things, who show deep kindness, and carry similar hopes and dreams for themselves and their children?

Village church choir: After-dinner music one evening

I can’t help but think that if we’re awakened to the beauty and astonishment in nature and in the people around us—if we truly notice and pay attention and think about how it all got here—then we surely must know there’s a Creator. Because none of these things evolved on their own. These wonders of nature and of humankind are the handiwork of a creative God.

Tish Harrison Warren, author and former New York Times news columnist, wrote “A Prayer for Re-Enchantment.” I love the full poem, but these are my favorite lines:

Wake us to the astonishment of being loved by a God
who is both infinite and closer than our breath—
Familiar, yet never garden variety.
Common, yet never old hat.
Cosmic, yet never out of reach.

If there’s a creative God who has made all this for our delight—and there is—then how much must He love us?

Yes, there is suffering, and war, and human trafficking, and dictators who wreak havoc, and disease, and poverty on this broken planet. But God wasn’t the one who broke it. It’s a result of mankind turning our back on a good, good Father.

I don’t think it takes a trip to a South Pacific island to discover the handiwork of a Creator God who shaped us for relationship with him. (That alone is the most astonishing thought, right there.)

I think being amazed simply requires new vision. It requires training our eyes to see the value of human beings and to observe what mysteries the Creator has made.

I think we’re called to wonder at all the wonders.