Michael Merrill / Creative Arts / Video Arts
I vividly remember spending most of my childhood wandering and exploring the woods behind our house. It was a vast land full of streams, pine forests, and all the adventure I could ever want as a kid. My friends and I would spend hours upon hours traveling to the places we had already been, while always anticipating the excitement that awaited us as we pressed on to find new places and things we had never seen. It was what I lived for in the summers. I always awoke with a sense of excitement as to what the day might bring, and went to sleep each night marveling at the wonders I had experienced.
As adults, we all have a tendency to get caught up in the busyness of our lives. Between our careers and families, our responsibilities... our thoughts begin to stray from all of the adventures that could be waiting for us right around the corner. I’ve noticed that the older we get, the less things open up our sense of wonder and amazement because we start to feel like we’ve seen it all. Things feel repetitive and cliché. But our God is even more vast than the woods I explored as a child. He is infinite, and there is no possible way we could even begin to explore all of the depths of who He is within our lifetimes. Therein lies the lesson that God has been teaching me lately. At times when I feel like I’m just going through the motions and things feel somewhat repetitive in life, it isn’t because I’ve already explored the entire ‘forest’ of God, it’s because I’ve stopped searching with the same intense excitement as I did when I was a child. It’s because I’ve stopped waking up in the morning excited about what God was going to show me that day.
When it really comes down to it, it’s a matter of expectation. If we stop exploring, expecting to find something new, our world becomes smaller and smaller until we feel like we’ve seen it all. Our capacity for love decreases. Our hearts become stale. The thought that we can no longer experience the same awe and wonder as we did as children is a lie. God wouldn’t have told us in scripture to become like little children if it weren’t possible. It is possible. Anything is possible with Christ. Do you remember the exciting experiences you had as a child that gave you that sense of awe and wonder? Dwell on that for a few minutes. We serve the God that is in the business of making things new. It’s very likely that your next adventure is waiting for you, just around the corner. You just need to expect it, and then look for it.
As adults, we all have a tendency to get caught up in the busyness of our lives. Between our careers and families, our responsibilities... our thoughts begin to stray from all of the adventures that could be waiting for us right around the corner. I’ve noticed that the older we get, the less things open up our sense of wonder and amazement because we start to feel like we’ve seen it all. Things feel repetitive and cliché. But our God is even more vast than the woods I explored as a child. He is infinite, and there is no possible way we could even begin to explore all of the depths of who He is within our lifetimes. Therein lies the lesson that God has been teaching me lately. At times when I feel like I’m just going through the motions and things feel somewhat repetitive in life, it isn’t because I’ve already explored the entire ‘forest’ of God, it’s because I’ve stopped searching with the same intense excitement as I did when I was a child. It’s because I’ve stopped waking up in the morning excited about what God was going to show me that day.
When it really comes down to it, it’s a matter of expectation. If we stop exploring, expecting to find something new, our world becomes smaller and smaller until we feel like we’ve seen it all. Our capacity for love decreases. Our hearts become stale. The thought that we can no longer experience the same awe and wonder as we did as children is a lie. God wouldn’t have told us in scripture to become like little children if it weren’t possible. It is possible. Anything is possible with Christ. Do you remember the exciting experiences you had as a child that gave you that sense of awe and wonder? Dwell on that for a few minutes. We serve the God that is in the business of making things new. It’s very likely that your next adventure is waiting for you, just around the corner. You just need to expect it, and then look for it.