Tuesday, October 29, 2024

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READ: Ecclesiastes 7

 I have tested all this by wisdom. I resolved, “I will be wise,” but it was beyond me. ²⁴ What exists is beyond reach and very deep. Who can discover it? ²⁵ I turned my thoughts to know, explore, and examine wisdom and an explanation for things, and to know that wickedness is stupidity and folly is madness. Ecclesiastes 7:23–25 (CSB)

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I saw Cirque Du Soliel for the first time in 2003. 

Saw… what a silly way to describe it. I experienced it. I trembled through it. I remember sitting in the theatre at Disney Springs in Florida, with tears welling up in my eyes, wondering why I was feeling so close to God! God! At Disney! The out-and-out shrine to humanism and materialism. How was my heart overflowing with worship at a place like that? 

I have felt a similar sensation at a Coldplay concert. Coldplay! A band that even uses cuss words in their music from time to time! Without assigning any priority, I have felt something similar at the birth of my kids – and the adoption of others – at funerals, during winter storms – and summer storms too – in movie theatres, on flights, while drawing, creating in my workshop, and during fireworks. 

Fireworks are the best! Two weekends again during Canadian Thanksgiving, Uncle John set off fireworks for us. This is the amazing thing about fireworks, I literally don’t care if they are gas station value packs or million-dollar national holiday displays – there is something about the spark, pop, flash, and whiz that just ignites my wonder. 

As does music, art, nature, and the circus. 

This is why fireworks are better than church. Sometimes it seems church does very little to ignite my wonder. Oh, it fills me in other ways – with knowledge for example. Relationally it’s a good place too, but there is something about explosions of colour that you just can’t replicate in a building with dusty rose carpet. 

My heart, and probably yours too, was made for wonder. (Probably, ha!) Wisdom as a singular pursuit, as noble as it is, was ultimately futile to Solomon. This is because at least in part, the well was too deep to plumb. We are made for much more than a brain full of facts, and this is something that doesn’t sit well with many people. It isn’t that one pushes the other out, I love learning and love teaching even more, but while wonder and wisdom are not mutually exclusive wonder isn’t learned and can’t be taught. The only way I know of to transfer what I feel is by invitation. 

This devotional is my way of doing that. This week it turns three years old. Three years ago my friend Brenden Valks persuaded me to begin writing – and I have enjoyed it immensely. The fact that people read what I’m writing, well that’s just a bit bonkers in my mind. 

So thank you for following along – I appreciate you and the fact that you’ve allowed me to wonder in words for these past three years. I think I’ll go another round. 

By the way, if nature is a monument to God and fireworks are a testament to His creative image on humans, then the aurora is the culmination of both. I dare say few natural events bring me as close to losing my mind as the Northern Lights.