Marvel itself will not move me forward. It may keep me high for a season, but it will not sustain me. Only agape can arrest and properly arrange the entire human frame: spiritually alive, emotionally anew, and physically alert. To be clear, marvel, or the sense of wonder, is a powerful impression upon an individual. However, being amazed is fleeting due to the eros nature of the human frame. We are capricious creatures running a very long race. It is inevitable that despite best intentions, our meditation upon marvel will not endure.
For example, I can marvel at the billions of miles of DNA within me or even at DNA itself. But that does not motivate how or why I live. Likewise, I can marvel at the billions upon billions of stars and planets within the universe. But again, that does not motivate how or why I love. The most profane of society acknowledges the mystery of DNA and the stars, but that marvel itself does not move them towards the sacred. Nor does it keep the righteous in right standing. Marvel is embedded in the complexity within and around us. It is the silent majority in the created universe. And while it gives witness, humans need more—specifically, we need answers to the deep, innate questions of our soul.
Questions of our soul: it sounds kitschy. And while we shrug it off with naïveté, our art is plagued with the insecurity of unanswered questions. We craft stories and ballads, yet we’re never really convinced. Art is a mirror. We see what’s inside ourselves, especially what’s missing.
King David didn’t stop at marvel, but worked it through to the question. Chapter 8 of Psalms reads, “Look at the splendor of your skies, your creative genius glowing in the heavens. When I gaze at your moon and your stars, mounted like jewels in their settings, I know you are the fascinating artist who fashioned it all! But I have to ask this question: Why would you bother with puny, mortal man or care about human beings?” (TPT).
No matter how much we protest and writhe against heaven, that is the question. Why do you know me? Why do you even care? Questions of our soul are more concerned with God’s motivation than his mechanics which leads us to the most Westernized and yet one of the most profound gospel statements: “For God so [greatly] loved and dearly prized the world, that He [even] gave His [One and] only begotten Son, so that whoever believes and trusts in Him [as Savior] shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 AMP).
Yes, God is an overwhelming fire. Yes, God is an outrageously good father. And yes, he is greatly desiring the world as his prize. To know this is to not only experience marvel, but mercy. And oh what marvelous mercy it is!
