Towards a Theology of Personal Development (5): Cultivating Awe and Wonder

It was a fairly typical conversation at the end of a busy week. “So what does your weekend hold?” a colleague asked. “Not a lot,” I said. “Dinner with some friends tomorrow, I’m preaching Sunday and then we’ve a family lunch afterwards.” “Sounds awesome,” he said. “Enjoy it.”

I don’t like being pedantic, but I wondered if I should challenge him about his use of words. While the weekend promised to be enjoyable, I was not convinced that there was anything in it that placed it in the “awesome” category. After all, if something is “awesome” it is because it creates a sense of awe. Now while the friends we had dinner with are great, they don’t leave me awestruck; while I enjoy preaching, I’m under no illusions that it deserves the awesome accolade; and though I love my family beyond measure, it’s hard to hold someone in awe when you remember changing their diapers when they were two.

Though I didn’t challenge his use of the “awesome” word, inwardly I tut tutted that when we trivialise language, adding superlatives to the ordinary, we weaken our ability to spot the genuinely outstanding, or awesome moments of life. It’s as though we have to pretend that everything is better than it is. After a disappointing performance people will say, “Well that was pretty average.” No it wasn’t… it was pretty disappointing, and that was because it was well below average! No doubt “pretty average” is meant to soften the blow, but in the end it is hard to know what anyone actually means.

I guess I am also a little twitchy about attaching the awe word to anyone other than God. Prov 9:10 alerts us that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” with most commentators agreeing that the “fear” spoken of is best understood as profound awe. In other words, our journey towards wisdom commences when we stand before God with profound awe and wonder. Why awe and wonder? Because this is the God who spoke all of reality into being. A song from my teenage years asked the question “How Big is God?” and answered with the statement, “He’s big enough to rule this mighty Universe, yet small enough to live within my heart.” That is indeed the stuff of awe and wonder.

While not backing away from what I’ve written, I was challenged when I read this provocative quote from Father Gregory Boyle. It flows from his astonishing work with gang members. “Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it.” It’s an invitation to stand in awe at how some of the world’s most vulnerable people carry the impossibly difficult things that life throws at them. I think it is right that we stand in awe at that, for it produces the best kind of humility in us – a humility that is shaped by gratitude.

There is a third kind of awe and wonder. It is when we look at life with the eyes of a child. I see it in my grandchildren, and each time it bubbles to the surface it reminds me that mine was once that look of delight and joy and wonder. The old saying warns us that familiarity breeds contempt. Sometimes we see things so often that we forget how truly awesome they are. Why not pause and ask to see some of life’s wonders with your three year old eyes again. My three year old eyes could gaze at clouds for hours on end, hearing the stories they told, and marvelling at their ever adapting shapes. Now I more commonly simply think, “Oh, it’s a cloudy day.” That’s a loss that needs to be resurrected with three year old instincts. Jesus meant it when in Matt 19:14 he said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

This is a series on shaping a theology of personal development, and I’m suggesting that awe and wonder are two important ingredients in any genuine growth. Awe of God, because that is the first step towards wisdom, awe at the ability of some to carry on when we would have long given up, and awe when we revert to the gaze of a child. The first kind of awe leads to praise and worship – or as the Wesley hymn puts it, being “lost in wonder, love and praise”. The second kind of awe leads to a deeper appreciation of others. It births gratitude, and gratitude leads to generosity and open heartedness. The third kind of awe leads to childlike joy, hope and optimism – it’s an intuitive awareness of transcendence.

When next someone says to you, “have an awesome weekend” – why not pause and ask, “what would make it genuinely awesome?” The answer could be in a deeper encounter with God, or a greater awareness of another, or the rediscovery of the eyes of a child. Perhaps they might even all merge together…

Nice chatting…

Photo by Daka: https://www.pexels.com/photo/little-boy-looking-up-13612905/

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