The Need For Wonder | part I

Read Time: 7-12 minutes 

— The Need For Wonder—

PART I

Hello, friend! 

Today I want to talk about WONDER. 

In the C.S. Lewis course I’ve been doing, one of the most talked about topics is the idea and need for imagination and that Lewis was always trying to awaken and resensitize us to imagination. 

In one of the lectures, it was talking about The Space Trilogy. One thing I took away from the lecture was Lewis’ ideas regarding space.

In my mind, Lewis is going backwards in thought.

Now what does that mean?

Well, in The Space Trilogy, Lewis creates wonder, imagination, and life on the other planets. There are life forms and creatures and all manner of wonderful and mysterious things out there in space. It is full and brimming with life and existence. 

Now how backwards is that? To modern science it seems that space is all discovered and known with not much wondrous about it. It is cold, lifeless, filled with stars and planets but is also empty, a void, a vacuum. It is things having come from chaos, destruction, accidents, and death. It is in a way meaningless to us. 

This was not always the thought pattern. This is why I say, Lewis’s thinking in regards to space and The Space Trilogy are backwards. He thinks (in the books) like the Ancient thinkers, scientists, scholars, and astrologists would more or less think—in stories. Or more accurately, stories with life, imagination, wonder, and mystery. 

When I was younger and even now, I loved to study mythology. The stories were fascinating to me—especially those with Christian parallels (something Lewis and I seem to have in common). 

The stories in mythology (though yes, are myth) are so interesting and full of life. They tried to explain the unexplainable. How do you explain what is unexplainable? Through stories. 

Through Stories: a thought 

There is wonder in these stories. Wonder in creation. Through stories we can see that wonder, that parallel, that beauty in the world—of God’s creation. 

I think that God can use stories even from other languages, cultures, and religions to reveal Himself. Through stories and even myths He can make Himself known. 

God is the Father of all lights. “God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.” —1 John 1:5 

He can move in many ways and wonders to bring people to Him even if it is not in the “traditional” and “normal” way. He wants to reach ALL people. 

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave  his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.” —John 3:16-17

So if God wants to save all people then why can’t He use stories and other ways to tell people about Himself and His Son? He wants ALL to be saved. Is it possible that He can use multiple methods to show people Himself and Jesus? There is only one way to be saved—through Jesus Christ. But there is a whole world with billions of people and cultures and places and times unreached. What about them? The Bible says that no one has any excuse for not knowing God for everyone has the ability to see Him. 

“They [people] know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.” —Romans 1:19-20

C.S. Lewis wrote…”There are people in other religions who are being lead by God's secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it.”

If you read Acts you see Paul use myths and stories known to people to share the gospel and make it known to more people. To reach more people about God and His son Jesus Christ. It’s not an uncommon method that God uses. 

So Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows: “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way, for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about.

“He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need. From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.

“His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.” —Acts 17:22-29

Through Stories: the dangers of myths 

Though I love myths, the stories of wonder and imagination—seasons being born from a mother’s love (and sorrows), the sun a chariot flying through the sky, horses being born from the sea, fire being a gift—each one so interesting (and something I think Lewis appreciated) but there is a dark side. 

As with anything that is taken away and separated from God there is born evil. For if God is light then the absence of light—of God—is darkness. There is no middle ground. It is either or. 

“Dark and empty was the Greeks’ version of the world. Which is fitting, I suppose, considering the absence of God is indeed the absence of light and essence of meaning.” —Ella Meyer*

The Bible talks about this in the beginning of Romans.

“Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.

“So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.” —Romans 1:21-25

Dangers aside, the idea of wonder is still important so long as you don’t take the wonder out of context—away from God. 

*This is from Ella’s wonderful Newsletter she sends out once a month! I highly recommend you subscribe: https://ofwitandwrittenwords.wordpress.com 

An Invitation To Wonder 

So, I want to invite you to see the wonder in things again. To see the world as a child would—as new, exciting, wonderful, dangerous, and even magical. To see the wonder and beauty of God’s creation—this beautiful world we live in. 

Look outside. 

Do you see the blue sky above? Or is it painted by God in a sunset or sunrise—with honey yellow, burnt orange, baby pink, and dark purple shade? 

Do you see any trees? They reach out their arms—their branches—towards the sun in an attempt to hold on to it and bring its warmth down to earth. 

Do you see the budding flowers? Each dressed in the finest colorful garments by God. 

Do you hear the birds chirping their songs of praise to the Holy One each new day? A song of thankfulness to be alive and longing for God. 

Do you see any clouds in the sky? Giving their shade on a hot day or crying out their tears of thankfulness at being used to water God’s earth. 

Do you see people? Each person is made in God’s image. Each person is loved by God. Each person God is calling to come home to Him and find safety in the warmth of His loving arms. 

Do you maybe see the moon? Still taking a peek at the earth even though his time of being the watchman—the lighthouse in the dark—is gone and now he can rest while the sun is guardian over the earth.

If night, do you see the stars? Look at them all dancing in their glowing garments, dancing the night away “as the morning stars sang together.”* Look at them twirl and sparkle and shout their praise to God in dance. 

Look at the earth “robed in brilliant colors.”**

Creation shouts the name of God. Everything in nature—the sky, the clouds, the trees, the flowers, the animals, everything—shouts the name of God. Each thing speaks of design by a loving and creative God. 

“The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship.” —Psalm 19:1

*Job 38:7 **Job 38:14 

Logic & Science 

If you see a building—something wonderful and grand like the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, Notre Dame, the Leaning Tower of Pieza—each work speaks of a designer, of a creator. All good food—the cookies you love, birthday cake, a sandwich, some bread—all speaks to there being a baker, a creator. Each book with its pages of ink and twists and turns all speaks to there being an author, a creator. All things cannot just come from nothing. It goes against logic. 

They—things—were first thought of and then created. The bed you sleep in, the sweaters you put on when its cold, the pillow you sleep on, the chair you sit in, the device in your hand while reading this, this post you are reading right now. Each came to be by a creator—someone had to make it. 

So, logically, if everything we know and see has been made by someone then something so wonderful, beautiful, grand, mysterious, scary, awe inspiring, challenging, and peaceful as nature all speaks of a creator. Nature—the natural non man made world—is so wonderful and complex and so obviously designed that there is no way it could just have “existed” or have come out of destruction and death like the “Big Bang” teaches. 

Nothing just exists. Everything has an origin story—a backstory of being created. Its a “law” of science. Something cannot come out from nothing—nothing can be created from nothing it must come from something. And yet…the world—this wonderful complex designed world—is said to come from seemingly nothing and it is called “scientific” even though it goes against the very principles of being scientific. 

Beauty and life cannot come from destruction. No explosion has produced a well crafted building or pumpkin pie. It is illogical because something good and wonderful cannot come from destruction or the explosion of things. The destruction and explosion of things produces brokenness, further destruction, and death. There is no beauty and life in that. Yet, the Big Bang teaches that from nothing came a cosmic explosion that through millions of years of death and destruction produced everything we see—the beautiful sky with its shield over the earth from freezing or heating everything death and keeping out harmful rays from the sun that would kill us (look it up! Its called The Van Allen belts or magnetosphere), the trees in their leafy garments and branches reaching towards the heavens who give us the air and oxygen we need to breathe and survive and we give them our toxic breath (carbon which can kill us in high amounts but they absorb) and that is what they breath and then they give us air, the birds all wonderfully crafted and are fed each and every day and are in want of nothing—all of that is supposedly supposed to have just come from this destruction and death and unscientific-ness. It goes against the laws of science. 

Truly it is hard to believe in such things as these. You must have so much faith to believe in this and its contradictions and be able to still go on with it. It is called science yet it goes against the laws and principles of science. Now how does that work? 

All Speaks To a Creator | Part I 

So now we have gone over the fact that if everything we know and see has been made by someone then something so wonderful as nature all speaks of a creator. So logically there must be a creator. 

There must be. 

I want you to picture this… 

To Be Continue…

This was quite a LONG post and originally I was going to post the whole thing together but…at about 5000 words…splitting it in half sounds better and more manageable to read. So, make sure to come back SOON to read part II of this discussion on wonder (with a short story)! 

See you soon!