Browse By Topic 
W Wonder
Emerson: "Wonder is the seed of science."
Alfred North Whitehead: "Philosophy begins in wonder."
"It appears that WONDER is the priceless ingredient in the life of any thinking person. The trouble is that wonder is a rare ingredient. You do not find it present in most modern worship."
-- Warren W. Wiersbe
Source: Spirit of Revival & Awakening, June 1999, p. 24.
"We 'know all about God.' We study; we listen to sermons, in person and by means of cassettes; we read books that explain what God is all about. We have outlined the Bible, analyzed God's attributes, and charted the ages. . . . Furthermore, we live in the space age and have watched rockets and space shuttles take off and return. We have witnessed man walking on the moon. Thanks to TV documentaries, we have seen everything from the conception of a baby to the eruption of a volcano. We have watched flowers grow, fish spawn, and stars become supernovas. There is no more mystery, no more wonder in the world.
"The church today is imperiled by what it THINKS it understands. . . . [Yet] a leading modern theologian, T.F. Torrance, states it perfectly: 'Worship is the exercise of the mind in the contempation of God in which WONDER and AWE play an important part.'
"Perhaps this is one lesson Jesus had in mind when He told His disciples to become as little children."
-- Warren W. Wiersbe
Source: Spirit of Revival & Awakening, June 1999, pp. 24-25.
Great thinker J. Robert Oppenheimer once declared, "There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top unsolvable problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I have lost long ago."
Indeed, tests show that a child's creativity, which includes imagination and wonder, diminishes by 90 percent between ages 5 and 7! And, by the time an adult gets to be 40 years old, he retains only about 2 percent of the creative capacity he held at age 5.
No wonder the children were busy singing out to Jesus in the temple (Matthew 20) while the theologically trained adults tried to silence them! And, no wonder Jesus urged His disciples to become as little children.
-- Warren W. Wiersbe
Source: Spirit of Revival & Awakening, June 1999, p. 25.
Topics/Tags: Creativity; Imagination; Wonder; Awe
"'To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand,' wrote Jose Ortega y Gasset. Moses staring at the burning bush and Peter struggling with the breaking nets illustrate this truth clearly. Both men had their lives changed because they were AMAZED at something God did in their lives."
-- Warren W. Wiersbe
Source: Spirit of Revival & Awakening, June 1999, p. 25.
Topics/Tags: Wonder; Amazement; Awe; Understanding
LOVING FATHER,
Make my heart like that of a child.
Give me again the excitement and joy of wonder.
How wonderful it is that I am even able to wonder!
Remove the scales from my eyes,
the callousness from my heart,
the stubbornness from my will,
and enable me to enjoy the wonder of it all.
Deliver me from routine worship,
from 'business as usual,'
from form without force and liturgy without life.
May Your Holy Spirit energize that 'new creation'
that is now within me,
And may it be ever new, ever wonderful,
To the glory of Your Name.
AMEN.
-- Warren W. Wiersbe
Source: Spirit of Revival & Awakening, June 1999, p. 26.
Topics/Tags: Wonder; Excitement; Renewal
Pastor Gary Stratman tells of a youth retreat he went on while in high school.
"We went to a beautiful place called 'Uplook Lodge.' One of the adults with us did not seem to fit the 'youth leader' stereotype. He was Harvard-educated, very successful in business, the reserved, dignified type.
"He shocked us one morning by arising at dawn (we had just gone to sleep after talking all night!) and exclaiming at the top of his lungs, "Glory, glory!!" at what he had seen in the sunrise."
_________
No matter how educated and sophisticated you get, never lose your ability to marvel at the glory of God!
Source: "Glory," Gary Stratman, in "Preaching," Nov/Dec 1989, p. 25.
Browse By Topic W Wonder