I love mornings
I know that there are morning people and night people, and that I fall into the former category. But I’ve found it so important to build each day on a firm foundation. There is simply a palpable difference between the days where I lay a foundation of praise and quiet reflection to start the day and those in which I just launch off into the storms without first settling my heart.
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The Glory of God in Spiderwebs
How much do you desire God?
Over the past few years, one of my dearest mentors has been pastor John Piper of Desiring God ministries. John Piper has an amazing gift for displaying the glory of God in the trivial, painful and exultant. He has been a tool of God to increase my joy tenfold.
I’m currently reading (actually listening to) his book “When I Don’t Desire God,” which you can actually download in PDF format from DesiringGod.org. On my drive to work this morning I was struck by this statement:
Clearly human beings have a strange malady that makes the ordinary glories of each day almost invisible, and certainly less interesting than their imitations in theaters and television. There are more ooooh’s and ahhh’s over the visual effects on a thirty-foot theater screen than over the night sky and the setting sun. Why is it so hard for us to feel wonder at the usual when clearly it is more spectacular than the man-made imitation? (p 190)
Boy, isn’t that true? Romans declares that “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Rom 1:20) But this strange malady that Piper mentions has us consumed in trivia like the evening news or the latest blockbuster. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psa 19:1) but all we can talk about is whether Jessica Simpson is going to mess up the Cowboys chances at a title. How absurd!
Piper goes on to say:
The point is that Christ frees us from self-preoccupation and gives us—yes, only very gradually—a childlikeness that can see the sheer wonder of the staggering strangeness of the ordinary. Chesterton said that this discovery for him was captured in a riddle: “What did the first frog say?†Answer: “Lord, how you made me jump!†In another place he says that he came to the point where what amazed him was not the strangeness of people’s noses, but that they had noses in the first place. In becoming more childlike and more able to see glory in the wonder of the ordinary and the routine, he points out that we are becoming more like God.
[Children] always say, “Do it againâ€; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again†to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again†to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. (p 192 – quotes from G. K. Chesterton Orthodoxy)
I think this idea is summed up very well by a song I love by Keith and Kristyn Getty entitled Don’t Let Me Lose My Wonder from their wonderful album In Christ Alone (highly recommended!). Here are the lyrics:
Don’t Let Me Lose My Wonder (Keith and Kristyn Getty)
I’ve seen days melt into nights, in circles of lights,
I’ve watched a spider spin a star between the window box flowers,
I’ve heard you laugh and cry in a single sigh, and a story form within.
Don’t let me lose my wonder.
Don’t let me lose my wonder.
I saw her broken, dreams inside, but helping others fly,
I saw his eyes, without a doubt, though other lights faded out,
And though her calling roared, such graciousness flowed
From the vision of her soul.
A baby cried through the dark beneath a jeweled spark,
I knew Your voice upon the hill and heard my lostness still,
I found my home in the light, where wrong was made right
And You rose like the morning star.
Don’t let me lose my wonder
Don’t let me lose my wonder.
Yes, Lord. Don’t let me lose my wonder.
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