“Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” — Romans 1:22-23 (ESV)
The Desire for Wonder
All of humanity is marked by an insatiable desire for wonder. We long for that which is unexplainable, intensely interesting and unfathomable. But too often we settle for being temporarily fascinated by the things of the world. We look at concepts, cultures and man-made creations and wonder in that which is meant to lead us to the One who is most wonderful — our Heavenly Father.
You and I were created to marvel at the invisible nature and miraculous, supernatural works of God. We were created to know personally the God who created a universe so vast that its enormity is beyond measure. We’re created to experience communion with the God who created that which is so miniscule even our largest microscopes can’t capture it. We serve a God of wonder who alone can satisfy our insatiable desires for fascination.
But somewhere along the way we’ve chosen as a people to seek to wonder in the world over God. Romans 1:22-23 gives us insight into this destructive pursuit. Scripture says that early on in history, humans “claiming to be wise … became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” Sin turned our gaze from God to His creation. We exchanged that which would wholly fascinate us for all of eternity for idols that were never designed to satisfy us at all.
You can see it all around. In our culture, we idolize the created over the Creator. We lift up men and women instead of looking to the King of kings. We spend hours placing our hope in that which will never fully satisfy us. I can see it in myself. I jump from material thing to material thing, TV show to TV show, idea to idea, just looking for something to fascinate me. I’ll be fascinated with something for a week or month at most, and then I get bored. We buy and sell, get in and out of relationships, and ride emotional roller coasters, the whole time thinking, “This will be it; this is what I’m missing.”
God is calling us to a restored life where our need for wonder is satisfied in Him — producing peace, joy, fulfillment and purpose. He is calling us to stop seeking to marvel in that which is fleeting, and to root ourselves in Him who is eternally satisfying. He is calling us to look at the world through a Heavenly perspective to see that all of His creation, good or bad, would draw us to Himself.
Take some time in prayer to assess the ways in which you are seeking satisfaction for your desire for wonder. May you wholly marvel at your present, eternal and loving Heavenly Father today.
— Craig Denison, First 15
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