as promised . . .

from the knowledge of the holy by a.w. tozer.
read if you care to have your complacent look on life destroyed.
it's weighty, but plow thru it.
and then rest awhile and wonder at the mystery of life.

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"Thomas Carlyle, following Plato, pictures a man, a deep pagan thinker, who had grown to maturity in some hidden cave and is brought out suddenly to see the sun rise. 'what would his wonder be,' exclaims Carlyle, 'his rapt astonishment at the sight we daily witness with indifference! with the free, open sense of a child, yet with the ripe faculty of a man, his whole heart would be kindled by that sight . . .'

"how different are we who have grown used to it, who have become jaded with a satiety of wonder. 'it is not by our superior insight that we escape the difficulty,' says Carlyle, 'it is by our superior levity, our inattention, our want of insight. it is by not thinking that we cease to wonder at it . . . we call that fire of the black thundercloud 'electricity' and lecture learnedly about it, and grind it out of glass and silk: but what is it? whence it comes? whither it goes? science has done much for us; but it is a poor science that would hide from us the great deep sacred infinitude, whither we can never penetrate, on which all science swims as a mere superficial film. this world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful, incrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it.'

"[even after years of advances in science and technology] we still do not know. we save face by repeating frivolously the jargon of science. we harness the mighty energy that rushes through our world; we subject it to fingertip control in our cars and our kitchens; we make it work for us like aladdin's jinn, but we still do not know what it is. secularism, materialism, and the intrusive presence of things have put out the light in our souls and turned us into a generation of zombies. we cover our deep ignorance with words, but

we are ashamed to wonder,

we are afraid to whisper, 'mystery.'"

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a friend of mine named grace was standing at the kitchen sink before our bible study one day just staring at the water running over her hand.

later when i asked her about it she told me she was just thinking. about how the water washed over her hand instead of being absorbed into it. about how her thin layer of skin was created to keep out things that would harm the rest of the body. about how her brain got her fingers to do exactly what she wanted them to do.

she was marveling.

'wonder'-ing, if you will.

about hands.

and skin.

and water.

what a springboard of worship is our 'wonder'-ing.