It was the spring of the year I would turn 12 when I made a
discovery that would change my life.
One of my favorite places to go was to the army surplus store. My dad, being a school principal, would
often go there to see if there were some office supplies or a vehicle that he
could pick up cheap for the school.
This particular trip, I got to accompany him.
I loved the musty old smell of the canvas tents and the cool
look of the uniforms. There were
hats and gloves and wool pants for winter hiking. There were hammocks and canteens and mess kits. But I had already acquired a number of
the regular articles. I had $3
bucks in my pocket and I was on the hunt for the unusual. I didn’t know what it was yet,
but I was on my way to discovering it.
While dad looked at the long sheet of available vehicles, I
went up and down the aisles looking for that special find. I looked at boots and handwarmers and
gloves where you could slide your fingers out without taking them off. I checked out compasses and whistles
and survival kits and signaling mirrors.
All of them were cool, but they weren’t what I was looking for.
I was looking for that special “find”. The kind that every young boy hopes to
discover. You don’t know exactly
what it is until you find it, but once you find it, you just know that’s
it. The moment you lay eyes on it,
you just know. Girls could never
really understand it. But boys
knew. My sister would grow
impatient and tell me just to find something and get on with it.
But I always wanted to hold out for that special find. That moment that I just knew I
had the find. How do you
know? Because you know that the
moment you unveil your find to your friends, they will think it’s the coolest
thing they have ever seen. And
they’ll go: “That’s awesome! Where
did you get it? How much did you
pay? Can I hold it? Let me see that!”
That’s how you know you’ve got your genuine, authentic
find. I’m sure there are female
counterparts, but I wasn’t looking for anything girly. I was out, this particular day for a
man-find. So I continued the hunt.
I looked at ammo pouches and camouflage gun covers and camo
face paint. I thought I almost
found it when I came across the grenade vests. Those were cool with all the pockets for the grenades, but
they weren’t quite the find since I didn’t have any grenades.
Next I looked at survival knives and helmets, but I already
knew guys in the neighborhood that had those. There was some Vietnam sunburn cream and some ice crampons
in bins next to each other, but not what I was looking for either. There were scopes and binoculars—too
expensive. Patches and insignias—already
had ‘em. And then I came around
the corner…and there was my find!
Sitting right there at the end of the aisle. I knew, as soon as I looked at it that this was it. And it was only $2.50.
I grabbed one and went running towards the front of the
store where dad continued to leaf through the pages of surplus vehicles. This find would require his
permission. If I could only get
him to let me buy it, I would soon be recognized as the most intrepid explorer
on the block.
“Dad,” I almost shouted, “can I buy this? I have enough money.” Dad looked my way and a frown crossed
his face. This was going to be a
hardsell.
“No, son, a machete is way too dangerous for a boy your
age.” He responded. “You could get hurt or hurt someone
else.”
“But dad, you’ve said yourself that those vines behind the
house have got to go. You said
that they are taking over everything.
Well, with this, I could just hack them up for you and stack them and
then when they are dried out, we could just burn them. And I promise to be careful and only
use it on vines and stuff like that out in the woods.”
There were a lot
of vines, and dad saw I had lots of enthusiasm. Maybe he could create a win-win. “Ok, but you have to be careful and only use it on the
vines.”
I was already on my way to the cash register.
Wait 'til the guys see this.
The next few weeks were spent as king of the block as my
machete, in it’s green canvas sheath,
hung from my green army surplus attachment belt. I hacked through the vines, letting
other guys try it out when I got tired.
In no time, all the vines were down and we were looking for other stuff
to chop. We entered the woods
behind the house, where we hacked at the bottom of large grapevines, making
ourselves tarzan style swings. We
hacked trails all through the woods, exploring, conquering and in general
having a great time. And one day I
made another find.
I was out on one of our trails, when I spotted a dense
thicket. It was just the sort of
thicket that needed hacking by an army surplus machete. I left the trail and hacked my way over
to it, and there discovered that it wasn’t just any old thicket. This was a honeysuckle thicket.
I decided to make myself a fort. A honeysuckle fort with a low hidden entrance. So I hacked a little hole down at the
bottom and crawled through. Once
deep inside, I hacked out enough room to lay down. In no time, I was on my back, looking up through the ceiling
of my honeysuckle fort to clouds beyond, grabbing flower after flower and
breaking off the tips and sucking the nectar out of the end. I loved that fort. I returned over and
over, long after the flowers had gone and spent hours there, deep in my
imagination, making up new adventures and then going out to conquer. It was a
time of wonder. Of awe. Of aliveness. Do you remember times
like that?
I began thinking of other times in life when I felt fully
alive, enshrouded in awe and wonder.
And most of them were when I was a kid. Though some are from when I was older.
The sight of a perfectly flat and smooth lake at 5 am, with
the sun just coming up to chase the mist off of the water as our boat idled out
of the cove and I was going out to learn how to barefoot ski.
Pausing at the top of a ski run in Breckenridge, Colorado to
just look out at the winter scenery and being caught off guard at the beauty of
the scene.
Sitting in a rocking chair on the backporch of a log cabin
with a tin roof during a summer rain shower and just listening to rain and
watching it run over the edge of the roof and splash at the base of the porch.
What happened to that sense of wonder? Where did the awe go? How did life become so flat and
passionless? How did we lose our
childlike sense of awe?
In his book Dangerous Wonder: The Adventure of Childlike Faith, the late Mike Yaconelli suggests four obstacles that block adults from living the childlike faith that Jesus calls us to:
* The obstacle of dullness: we have made faith safe and comfortable, but the faith Jesus taught was radical and transforming.
* The obstacle of the dream stealers: we make a relationship with the living God into ritual and rules, quenching the work of the Spirit.
* The obstacle of predictability: we put God in a box, never allowing him to surprise us, challenge us, or show us something new, thus stifling the creativity of God.
* The obstacle of the banal: we become so immersed in our culture and in the material needs and wants of life, that we fail to live in abject dependence on God for every breath of air and every bite of bread.
Somehow, we have let society squeeze us into its mold. We buy what society says we need to be
happy. We don’t dare do anything
that might be against societal norms, except maybe go to church on Saturday,
but we have a good reason. We want
our churches and schools to be nice, filled with nice people, and somehow we
grow more concerned over how we look rather than how we see.
Never mind that Jesus called us to a radical faith, where
radical things happen. He called
us to follow Him. When was the
last time you actually did?
Just try and follow Him through scripture without being
amazed. He started with nothing
and created everything. Ponder
that for an hour and see what happens to your sense of awe.
In the first book of the Bible alone, you have creation,
sin, a plan revealed to save man, wickedness Ponder that. We thought the Christmas tsunami in
Asia was horrific a few years ago with over 500,000 dead or missing. And it was. We were shocked and yet in awe of the devastating power of
one wave. Whole countries totally
built or revamped their early warning systems based on one wave.
increasing, a world-wide
flood.
But a world-wide flood. That’s epic.
Only 8 made it out alive.
Their descendants tried to develop a safety net. A tower to escape another world-wide
flood…but God now mixed their languages so that confusion would set in and they
would move off and start new settlements.
You’ve got God telling a 110 year old man that his 90 year
old wife is going to be pregnant.
That’s amazing by itself.
But it actually happens.
Then God calls for Abraham to sacrifice that son.
Later in scripture, God sends plagues to deliver His people. He opens a corridor in the sea. He leads by a pillar of
cloud by day and fire by night. He
uses manna to feed them, and water from a rock to quench their thirst.
Do you see anything ordinary about His actions? Can you follow that kind of a
God.
When Jesus comes to show us what God is really like, it gets
more intense.
Protecting an adulterous woman but chastising the church
leaders. Turning over tables in
the temple and chasing tons of adults off, immediately followed by children and
the poor flocking around him
Healing lepers through touch, when the rules said you don’t
touch. Healing a man blind from
birth, but getting into trouble with the Pharisees because He did it on the
Sabbath.
Eating at the wrong houses; those of Sinners. Hanging out with the wrong people:
adulterers, demoniacs, tax collectors, lepers, and prostitutes.
Are you really following Jesus? Have you followed Him even to associate with those type of
people, treating them with love and respect just like He did.
We’ve lost our sense of wonder because we’ve allowed life to
become tame. No…not allowed it to
become tame…we have tamed it, so that it is nice. We want it comfortable. And we want a nice tame Jesus.
But again, as Mike Yaconelli points out in his book, Dangerous Wonder, “Tameness is not an option.
“Take surprise out of faith and all that is left is dry and dead religion. Take away mystery from the gospel all that is left is a frozen and petrified dogma. Lose your awe of God and you are left with an impotent diety. Abandon astonishment and you are left with meaningless piety. When religion is characterized by sameness, when faith is franchised, when the genuineness of our experience with God is evaluated by its similarities to others’ faith, then the uniqueness of God’s people is dead and the church is lost.”
Yaconelli offers this challenge to the dull, dreamless, predictable, and banal faith that most of us refer to as "Christianity":
“It is time to find the place where the dangerous wonder of faith can be discovered—a place landscaped by risky curiosity, wild abandon, daring playfulness, quiet listening, irresponsible passion, happy terror and naïve grace. In a day when most of us are tired, worn-out, thirsty, and starving for life and joy and peace, maybe it is time to become a child again.
What does that mean? I think it can be boiled down to one word. Savor. A child naturally savors life. When I was in the middle of my honeysuckle fort, I savored it. I enjoyed it. I soaked it in. But our hurry and worry never allow us to pause for wonder."
Albert Einstein once said,
“He who can no longer pause to
wonder, is as good as dead.” And I
think he’s right. It’s proven over
and over as you watch the lives of people who are always rushing. They can’t pause…they have to
rush. No time to pause for God,
because they will be late. No time
to pause to savor life, because time is money. No time to pause and savor relationships, because there are
3 jillion things on their to-do
lists.
So much to
savor, yet we seldom do. We seldom
stop to reflect and soak in what is truly deserving of our awe. And yet when we do stop and savor, awe
comes almost as a by-product.
So when will YOU stop...and savor?
(Dangerous Wonder, Mike Yaconelli, NavPress; 2 edition (September 16, 2003
