The Wonders of Life

In my blog post last week, I reflected on the cicadas and the wonders of observing this phenomena. I think many of us take for granted those things that happen routinely but are anything but routine. Several weeks ago, we were flying to Florida and the man in the seat behind me of nearly 50 years old commented that he had never flown before.

He was so excited that he asked the people on either side of him to take pictures out the window. He was also hyper-ventilating as we took off and gasping as we landed. About 30 minutes in the flight, he hit the call button and asked the flight attendant if she could "take his order". He did not understand the routine of airplane service. About a few hours in, I got up to stretch (I do this routinely in flight because I have had a blood clot and my hamstrings also are very tight). He asked me if it was ok to stand in the aisle like that.

I reflected on what this man was experiencing. Since when does flying 600 mph in a metal tube with a hundred of our closest friends become normal? My brother-in-law is a pilot and even he is routinely awed by what the world looks like from 10,000 to 30,000 feet in the air.

We were at a wedding last night and a friend of our daughter brought her seven week old baby to the wedding. Looking at a new born baby should fill us with wonder. In the movie Rocky (Rocky II that is), Rocky says to Adrian when their baby is born "I can't believe you did this". Rocky has wonder but it is misplaced. God is the author of this complicated human organism and uses people as the means.

Do we approach life with a sense of wonder?  Or with a sense of routine? There are so many daily routine, ho-hum things that we see that reflect the wonder of who God is. Even giving ourselves credit for the wonders of technology should be directed not from the inventor but to the ultimate creator God who fashions the complex into the seemingly ordinary.