Day 1 || Surrender — Click Here
Day 2 || Surrender — Click Here
Day 3 || Trust — Click Here
Day 4 || Confidence — Click Here
8 That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. 9 Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, 10 but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. 11 The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! 12 And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”
15 When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” 16 They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. 17 After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. 18 All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, 19 but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. 20 The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them. || Luke 2:8-20 (NLT)
We know it all. We’ve seen it all. It’s tough to slip something past us we haven’t heard before.
While this isn’t exactly true, we’ve been conditioned to feel like it is. With the prevalence of information at our fingertips, it certainly feels like just about everything worth knowing is available to be known.
And when we do see something we haven’t seen before, we tend not to believe it’s real. When every celebrity is Photoshopped to perfection when every movie is CGI’d to the point where we don’t know what’s real and what isn’t… who can blame us?
You might say we’ve lost our sense of wonder. And that’s a bad thing. Wonder is like curiosity times ten. It’s the spirit of discovery. It’s looking at the world around us with a healthy dose of “I can still be impressed, surprise, and/or amazed.”
The shepherds had a huge sense of wonder.
They had just been witness to a holy concert, a heavenly performance unlike any ever heard. And they were amazed. They were like, “WOW!” (Or something like that.) Moved by this, they took off running, acting on their strong sense of wonder, heading out to discover if what they had been told was true.
And of course, they found that it was true. As true as anything could ever e. Their wonder was rewarded. They were amazed. Moved. Transfixed. All because they possessed an amazing curiosity and openness about God and His ways.
THINGS TO THINK ABOUT…
- What was the last thing, whether it was an experience or something you learned, that stopped you in your tracks and made you say, “wow”?
- Why is it so easy to just go through the motions of life, failing to have any wonder about the world around you?
- Can you know all there is to know about God? (Hint: no) What role does wonder play in knowing God better?
Trent Fugitt 