Tag: awe

Posted in Living this Life

Air shows and roller coasters and prayers

Posted on by Sara

For that brief moment, as the ground shook and the sky roared, I could not stop myself from gasping out loud. I looked around me at my sons, and saw the same look on their faces – awe … wonder.

I’ve been thinking about that day alot lately. Also about my journey from where I was to where I am. And about the invisible line in our lives that keeps us in our “safe” little boxes. This strange day brought so many of those pieces together in one gasp.

We went to the air show. It was exciting – there were pilots doing things with planes that no plane is designed to do. We took so many pictures, saw so many stunts, ate good food, enjoyed the music, and generally had a really fun time.

But then the Blue Angels took to the sky, and everything was different. These F/A-18E/F Super Hornets can brag about their power, their speed, their G forces – but all I know is they took my breath away as they roared over my head in a way I had seldom experienced.

Then it was over in a split second, it seemed. But my heart was still racing. And I wondered – when is the last time my heart has raced like that? How often do I experience that “whatness” that is impossible to put into words, but we all know it when we feel it.

As those planes roared overhead, and my mouth hung open, I thought of the words of Jonathan Edwards – that we ought to “be endeavoring by all possible ways to inflame [our] desires and to obtain more spiritual pleasures. . . . Endeavor to promote spiritual appetites by laying yourself in the way of allurement” (Sermon on Canticles)

Allurement – what a weird word. Who says that anymore? I googled it and was told “allurement means fascination, charm, or the power to entice or attract”

I mean – isn’t that pretty much what I felt when those jets roared above me … power to entice or attract? We use other words, but I just couldn’t stop thinking that if I had just stayed home that day and not made an active choice to be where the planes were, I would have missed the moment.

But then more happened… keep walking through that crazy wonderful day with me. Because this next part is what makes me shake my head a bit and lean in to what this all really means.

We left the airshow and meandered over to our favorite amusement park, where they had a concert going on. This concert was a southern gospel staple – not the kind of music I listen to most of the time, but a fun way to end the day. As the concert kicked off, the emcee had a moment of prayer. And as the crowd in the ampitheater grew quiet for prayer, the emcee began to pray, and suddenly we heard screams erupt. Startled, I lifted my head to see what seemed like a strange juxtaposition, and that is when the Holy Spirit spoke loudly to my heart.

Behind the ampitheatre stage where a man stood with his head bowed is the tallest, fastest, steepest spinning roller coaster in the world. And as he said “dear Lord…”, that roller coaster hurtled behind him full of riders screaming in exhileration.

I giggled a little. Then I felt a little bad about giggling in the middle of a prayer. Then I pictured a smile on Jesus’ face – in the middle of it all and realized – there’s something more happening in the middle of all this. What do ground shaking jets, a simple prayer, and screams from a coaster all have in common? That simple phrase, “lay yourself in the way of allurement” kept rolling around in my head.

In this world of self promotion, branding, and influencers, the next great thing is always tugging at us. And that moment – my ears still ringing with the roar of jet engines, and now juxtaposed with the screams of exhileration alongside of a moment of prayer – made me pause: what does it mean to lay yourself in the way of allurement? Is it about seeking out the next adrenaline pumping exhileration and bouncing from one experiential high to the next? Is it the moments of solitude and quiet that comes in prayer? Were the screams of the roller coaster riders interrupting our prayer – or augmenting it?

I’m not here to break it all down for you and give you a simple formulaic answer. But I walk away with a truth in my heart: this wonder in life is all around us – each of us – every day. Whether it is in the ground shaking power of a plane, a quiet moment of prayer, or the unexpected drop of a roller coaster – there is a moment to capture that slips away in just that moment. How are we doing at letting it in? Are we living purposefully in the moments that we are given?

To wake up in the morning and be aware of the firmness of the mattress, the warmth of the sun’s rays, the sound of the clock ticking, the sheer being of things… becom[ing] alive to life… seeing what is there in the world—things that, if we didn’t have, we would pay a million dollars to have, but having them, ignore. Become more alive to beauty. Put your soul on notice that there are daily wonders that will waken worship if we open our eyes. (amended from quote by John Piper)

David captures this thought so perfectly in Psalm 35:7-10: “Both  high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house; You give them drink from Your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light”

I guess what I’m trying to say is this: God has filled my life – your life – with innumerable “allurements”. Wonders and beauty and unexpected winks that are meant to “fascinate, charm, entice, and attract”.

Are we seeing it? What clouds our vision? Sometimes the fog of pain can be too thick – life can be so upside down it’s impossible to see through it. That’s real – yet even there, maybe this can help usher in a ray of light. I suspect on most days, however – for most of us – we’re just a bit too distracted. Glowing screens in our faces, the crush of the to-do list, the flurry of life, the decisions and challenges and daily pressures all crowd in and our eyes stop truly seeing.

Entering into this Christmas season with our surroundings decorated and our air filled with different music, maybe this is an invitation to live on purpose. To choose every day to lay yourself in the way of His allurements – to find the treasures He has tucked into your everyday rush that feed your soul with wonder and joy and life. To see and to savor, whether it’s the roar of jet engines, screams from a roller coaster, or just a quiet prayer.

“I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the Lord, who call you by your name, am the God of Israel” Isaiah 45:3

Posted in Living this Life

The bell still rings for me…

Posted on by Sara

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I rode the Polar Express the other night.

Not by myself, of course – that would have been weird.

My family all jumped aboard with me – we dug out the Christmas PJs and Santa hats and braved the cold to ride the train. We sang the Christmas songs, drank the hot chocolate and ate the cookies – we met Santa, saw the elves, and let ourselves feel the magic of the story.

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But as I sat in the middle of all the merriment – I looked around at all the other families sharing this moment with us and thought – this is all so bizarre. There is the man up there, with his arms covered in tattoos participating in the same experience as me. And in another car, there is the big family wearing matching giraffe costumes – I still don’t know what that has to do with the Polar Express or Christmas, but they looked cozy and happy. Surrounding me are people of all ages – wearing all manner of PJs and random Christmas attire – every walk of life, sharing this moment, this story, this child-hearted experience.

And I can’t stop thinking about it.

Whey do we do these things? We drink lukewarm hot chocolate, eat cheap sugar cookies, and listen to a story we’ve heard over and over … and we LOVE it! The incongruity of it all makes me think that something much more important is happening in our spirits and maybe we just don’t have the words.

If you’re anything like me, this grown-up world can spin you upside down. And if we’re not careful, the harsh winds can form a crust around our souls until we stop feeling. Maybe what we all need this Christmas season is a taste of childlike wonder to wake our souls up and help us see beyond ourselves.

Chesterton says it like this: “Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

Is it possible? Do you think that this is what we’re all really craving but don’t know how to say it? A taste of the kind of wonder that we’ve all somehow forgotten? So we slip on our jammies and ride Christmas trains and whisper “do it again” because we all need to wake up our slumbering souls and savor the wonder again?

What about when it ends, and we wake up the next morning, put on more appropriate attire, throw in the next load of laundry, take the kids to school, and go about our workday, shuffling along in the apparent monotony of life. What about those days that unfold into weeks until we start to feel like robots in a factory?

I saw a man yesterday who had been through mind-numbing physical pain. He was a strong, active man – but sickness recently claimed his foot and part of his leg. As I saw him being helped on stage, with what remained of his leg wrapped and hanging out the bottom of his pants, my heart broke a little. Then he spoke, and my heart swelled. This is what he said about his pain – “it’s been a great adventure. All this pain – it’s worth it to simply feel.”

Maybe we spend too much time trying not to feel. We avoid the pain, numb our spirits with technology and diversions. We escape the monotony by running somewhere else in our minds, wishing we could be anywhere but washing these dishes again. We see other lives on social media that seem so much more interesting than ours and we forget that they start and end the day the same way we do – maybe we all need to ride the Polar Express and remember how to feel the wonder again.

To do it again with hearts awake! To let the magic pour out of the air around us and soften the crust around our souls. “All around us, magic is overflowing and running down the streets. Do you really live on a ball spinning in circles through the stars? Does the heat from the closest star really make trees and grass and moss out of the carbon dioxide in the air? Have [they] really pulled black ooze up from beneath the earth’s skin, mixed it in their lairs into something that explodes, and made us magical metal boxes than can race around on roads, riding on those explosions? Are you bored with that, yawning in your seat belt? Is lightning real? Tornados? Does the big spinning ball beneath us always suck us down, and are we really talented enough to constantly balance on our feet? What kind of creatures are we?

Sit Moses and Beowulf down, and listen to their stories. Sit Bilbo down and listen to his. Do you disbelieve their tales? Are they made up? Are they fantasy? Now tell them your stories. Have you flown through the sky in a giant metal tube? Do we have boats that can sail to the very bottom of the sea? Have we thrown men all the way to the moon?

A hobbit would laugh at you. To him, your world could not be real. Your stories would be fun to read, beneath a blanket on a rainy day. He might look out of his window and sigh, wishing for a more magical world of his own.” (N. D. Wilson)

Whatever you have ahead of you today, this is the only day we’ve got! Let’s be brave enough to stop the hurry in our souls and let the hardness fall off. I know it’s not all starry eyed happy – I know pain often hovers or threatens to consume. But when Jesus said “let the little children come to me”, He was talking about you and me. In the middle of all we have before us today. He said the kingdom of heaven belonged to them – to us! This is not just future tense, this is our foretaste of the kingdom of heaven now.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” Psalm 34:8

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