Show Notes
The Grand Canyon. Mount Kilimanjaro. The Fjords of Norway. The endless dunes of the Sahara. Our planet is filled with places that invoke a sense of awe; areas that are beautiful, majestic, and terrifying all at once. Humanity has felt awe since time began - however, awe has only recently been acknowledged by our contemporary world as an emotion. It's not just any emotion either - awe has been shown to enhance our well-being. Awe is good for us. Awe adjusts our perspective, and helps us get "outside" of ourselves. It puts us in our place, in relation to something bigger, something more wonderful. Awe can be anywhere. Awe can be anything. And the Christain scriptures tell us we can get close up and personal with the ultimate source of awe - the God of all creation - on a daily basis. What are we waiting for?
"You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it. You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops.
You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance. The grasslands of the wilderness overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks
And the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing." Psalm 65: 9-13
More from Small Wonders
A trip to Western Australia brought Laurel to the famous Busselton Jetty - a 1.8 km timber-piled jetty stretching out into the Indian Ocean - the longest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. Initially built for practicality, the jetty is now a tourist destination and even features on postcards. The way it reaches out with such purpose is similar to prayer - an extension towards the eternal. But the main difference, of course, is the fact that we didn’t build the jetty between us and God. He did. But we still get to enjoy it. We can walk its length at any given moment and commune with Him.
In Romans 12, the Apostle Paul has a challenge for Christians: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is- His good, pleasing, and perfect will.”
Along York Lane in the Sydney CBD are alcoves and recessed doorways set into the buildings. It was in one of these recessed doorways where a man named Karl used to live (or rather, sleep). Hundreds of people passed Karl every day - and sadly, in 2013, Karl died in his sleep, exposed on York Lane. However, in a remarkable postscript, his long-lost brother, who had been searching for Karl for decades, finally found him. And he brought him home. "My son," the father said, "you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found." - Gospel of Luke, Chapter 15
The gap between what an Ibis is made for and what it does in the city becomes very apparent once you see it in its natural habitat. The Ibis is made to roam marshlands and use their elegant bills to dig for crayfish and mussels - not for scraps of rubbish in bins. But like these birds, we also often lose sight of the type of world we are made for and how we are meant to be. We can’t find the answer to who we are meant to be by looking within ourselves, but we can find it in God. ‘Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love’ the Psalmist writes in Psalm 51. ‘Cleanse me with hyssop, and I shall be clean … create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.’
No matter how well things may seem, everyone faces times of testing where every day can feel like wading through thick sludge. But these challenges can also sometimes be, like molasses, unexpectedly sweet.