Seeing the Wonder (Friday Devotional)

And amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, “We have seen extraordinary things today.”

- Luke 5:26

The first time you’re in an airport, it feels like a wonderland. To your left there’s a souvenir shop with at least 10 things you gotta have; please, Mom!!! To your right are ten of your favorite fast-food restaurants, all within spitting distance of one another. Out the window are jumbo jets, the kinds you’ve previously only seen as toys. And then there’s the sheer vastness of the place; it’s like a whole city singularly focused on getting travelers where they need to go. To a child, an airport is awe-inspiring.

But the more you travel, the less fascinating it becomes. Like a mall or a school or a DMV, the airport becomes just another feature of civilization—important, valuable, but not particularly interesting. You’re glad they exist when you need them, but beyond that you don’t think about them much.

But just yesterday, as we made our way through Portland International Airport to get to our gate, I was reminded of that initial awe. I was strolling down one of the moving walkways—those horizontal escalators which get you down long corridors a little faster—when I saw something unusual coming my direction. On the moving walkway parallel to mine was a father sitting down with his baby boy in his lap. The baby was giggling and looking all around as they inched forward, completely captivated by the experience. To all the busy travelers—including me—the walkway was merely a convenient conveyance. To him, it was wondrous.

It can become far too easy to regard God Almighty the way we regard the airport. When you first come to know him, you are amazed, inspired, and enraptured. You want to taste living water in gulps, to pore over Scripture for hours, to worship without ceasing. But time goes by and passion wanes and, even as you (hopefully) mature in your faith, you also lose that initial zeal. Awe is replaced by familiarity and passion by routine, and before you know it, life in Christ starts to feel like the same old, same old.

I hope that baby in the airport will inspire you to recapture that sense of awe you once had—not toward the airport, but for the God who created, saved, and sanctified you. Look to him today with the wide eyes and the simple faith of a child. For he is not a mundane Lord—he is wondrous.