Psalm 19:1-6
Heaven is declaring God’s glory; the sky is proclaiming his handiwork. One day gushes the news to the next, and one night informs another what needs to be known. Of course, there’s no speech, no words—their voices can’t be heard—but their sound extends throughout the world; their words reach the ends of the earth. God has made a tent in heaven for the sun. The sun is like a groom coming out of his honeymoon suite; like a warrior, it thrills at running its course. It rises in one end of the sky; its circuit is complete at the other. Nothing escapes its heat.
Wondering
My family and I have lived in five different states over the past seventeen years: Georgia, Kentucky, Colorado, Wyoming, and now South Carolina. During that time there have been a few constants, things that we always find in every place that we live. First, we usually find the local library. We are a family of voracious readers and within the first week or so of moving to a new place, everyone has a library card. When we can’t find what we are looking for at the library, we find bookstores – used, new, Salvation Army or Goodwill – we find places to get books. And finally, we find all the museums, zoos, and aquariums in the area and normally end up with season passes.
While we were in Colorado Springs, our family got an annual pass to the Denver Museum of Natural History. Since the kids were homeschooled, we took trips during the week on less busy days and usually had the museum to ourselves. We had the chance to see all the standard exhibits about dinosaurs, native cultures, and animals from across the region as well as several special traveling exhibits like the Sherlock Holmes exhibit.
For some people, that may or may not sound like much fun, but for us, it’s heaven. We love the opportunity to learn but more than that, we love to revel in the wonder of it. Whether it’s a great book that carries us off to places we may never go or places that may never exist, staring up into the starry expanse of a planetarium, or wandering through an exhibit about peoples that once walked where we walk now, there is a sense of awe and amazement that comes with exploring these things and seeking to understanding them.
My personal favorite was an exhibit we saw after we had moved to Wyoming. The Denver Museum was given the opportunity to present the Dead Sea Scrolls. We were able to take a trip back in time to see coins, pottery, architecture and of course, the scrolls themselves, most dating from the second century BCE to the second century CE. It was a fascinating exhibit and it reminded me of one of the reasons that I have continued in ministry, even when things were difficult: The Wonder of It All.
No matter how difficult my circumstances have been or how easy they have seemed to be I have always maintained, to varying degrees, a sense of wonder, awe, and amazement about the person and work of God from the first spoken words of Creation to the myriad of words spoken now about God to this day. And I don’t think that I am alone. Consider the great classical works of art, music, and literature and you find yourself looking at statues and frescos of the patriarchs, hearing symphonies and oratorios to celebrate the life of Christ, and reading stories and parables of the work of God in creation.
A Psalm of wonder
Wonder is simply a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.[1] For the Hebrew people, this takes on the meaning of a special display of God’s power.[2] Psalm 19 is one such work of literature within the scriptures that speaks to this wonder.
The entire Psalm speaks of the wonder found in the Creator (1-6), in the Creator’s directions for the creation (7-10), and in creation’s prayer (11-14). In the first part, the psalmist writes about the declaration made by the created order. The writer sees everything as the handiwork of God and in everything a message that whispers, “Look at this! Marvel at this! The Creator made it!” This declaration is echoed in the story of Job where it says, “But ask Behemoth, and he will teach you, the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or talk to earth, and it will teach you; the fish of the sea will recount it for you. Among all these, who hasn’t known that the Lord’s hand did this? In whose grasp is the life of everything, the breath of every person?”[3] The second part speaks of the Creator’s directions for the creation, specifically the idea of Torah—literally, instruction in Hebrew. It speaks of the truth and wisdom in the Creator’s teaching and direction, how these words lead to healing, wholeness, and health. The third part is an act or worship as response to the Creator. “Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” In other words, the psalmist is praying that what they are saying and thinking should make the Creator feel a sense of approval.
A refuge of wonder
Another thing I do when our family has moved to a new place is set up my office at church and at home. A great deal of my time is spent within the walls of those two places, reading, studying, pondering. But more than that, it is a place of wonder. In those two places, I find myself digging through the histories and experiences of others who have encountered God over the centuries. As I read and write and pray through and with what I encounter in the pages I read, I find the awe and wonder of God in their stories and experience it in my own.
This, I believe, is also an invitation to us. That we too consider God in Creation, and God in Spirit and Truth with us here in our daily life. When speaking of worship with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, Jesus tells her that true worship is not to be found in Jerusalem or on Mount Gerizim – the place Samaritans worshiped God following their understanding of the example of Jacob. Jesus tells her, But the time is coming—and is here!—when true worshippers will worship in spirit and truth. The Father looks for those who worship him this way. God is spirit, and it is necessary to worship God in spirit and truth. What Jesus is telling her is that with the coming of the Holy Spirit, there will be no need for going anywhere to experience the awe and wonder of God’s presence. We who seek to be in it will find it and will know it as we know our own selves through the gift of the Spirit. And if you are not finding it where you are looking, maybe you are looking in the wrong place. And if the places you’ve always found it before aren’t revealing now, maybe it’s time to look elsewhere. As Jesus tells Nicodemus, “God’s Spirit blows wherever it wishes. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. It’s the same with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” To wonder with God is to also wander with God.
Wondering as a lifestyle
The point of all this is for the hearer of psalm to meditate, to stand in wonder and awe of the Creator, with the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit. As we do so, we will find a natural response begin to surface, the response of praise. Consider the psalms in general, what are they? They are the response of praise to an encounter between the writer and the God they have been in the presence of. For each of us, there is the unending possibility, through the Holy Spirit, of encountering God. In fact, for those of us who follow the Way of Jesus, it should not be a possibility, it should be a certainty. The presence of God in our lives should be such that we should be constantly encountering it. If we live as Paul admonishes and we pray without ceasing,[4] we will find that being a people of awe and wonder of the works and presence of God is second nature. If we are truly what we claim, the way we live will be an example to others of living from one display or God’s power to another.
Are you a person who experiences wonder? If so, wonder on. If not, what are you waiting for? The God we live in wonder of lives within us through the Holy Spirit to show us the surprise and admiration, born out of the beauty, the unexpected, the unfamiliar, and the inexplicable of our relationship with him.
[1] “Wonder,” Google Dictionary, Accessed 07.05.2018, https://www.google.com/search?q=Dictionary#dobs=wonder
[2] Francis Brown, S.R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2001), p. 68
[3] Job 12:7-10
[4] 2 Thessalonians 5:17
Brokenness to Wholeness 
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