Awe and Wonder

Firsts can be interesting. I can't remember the first time I drove a car, but I remember some of those early days. I remember the first time I liked a girl, and the first time I REALLY liked a girl. I remember my first job, my first day back in church, and many other firsts.

I had a good conversation with a friend of mine recently about "firsts" and their impact on us.

I remember the first time I went to Yellowstone National Park. Everything seemed so huge; it was a place of awe and wonder. It's something that you have to experience. And yet, as many times as I have returned, it's just not the same. It will always be a spectacular place, but the magic of that first visit will never be experienced again.

In my youth, I was an avid gamer (This isn't an article on the validity, or lack thereof, of gaming; that is a topic for another day), and I was reminiscing about one game in particular. It was 1996. We had rented the game from Blockbuster Video (yes, I know, I'm old). Then we went to the store and got some of those frozen pizza pocket things and some cheat codes for the game. Thinking back, I get a degree of nostalgia. I remember how "huge" the game seemed. I had many adventures back then.

You can never really go back and experience something like this a second time. As such, it can actually be easy to dwell on memories, or try to recreate them, or worse, become depressed because you can't regain that feeling. Living in the past isn't a healthy way to live life.

I know for me, as a sometimes more emotional person, it's easy to go there. While it is fun to look back on truly good "firsts", our hope is in Christ and in His work; we look forward to His return.

In my conversation with my friend, I asked if they thought we'd experience that feeling of nostalgia in the new heaven and earth. It was more of a rhetorical question; the truth is, I think that many of the good things we experience here and now will be experienced in a fuller sense in the new creation. Perhaps that will include that feeling of nostalgia, more to the point, that feeling of awe and wonder you get as you experience something new.

I trust it will be a "daily" occurrence.

It would be easy to become a bit sad as we grow up. The "firsts" of life become less and less.

I remember a little bit later, I was given the sequel to that game for Christmas. After beating several levels of it that same day, it dawned on me that this, too, wouldn't last. Even at eleven years old, I started to realize that that feeling of wonder was a fleeting thing.

I hope I'm making sense; sometimes I don't convey what I want. Maybe I'm just rambling.

But I know that I look forward to the day when things don't move from awesome to mundane. When the "magic," as it were, never leaves.

And frankly, it never truly does for the Christian. Every day is an opportunity to learn more about this great God who would save us. To learn more about the height, depth, and width of the love of Christ. And to look forward to the day when we will experience all of it even more fully, without the taint of sin on us or this world. And that should bring us to a place of awe and wonder.