In Search of Wonder
I realize I have become cynical of humans lately (myself included). I’m a pessimist (or perhaps a realist) and I don’t like it one bit. I have come to believe, (and I admit, perhaps I am deceived by the enemy), that we as humans are a judgmental and uncaring lot and by and large have lost our wonder.
We are also an ignorant bunch and, as I explained to my daughter today, this is absolutely fine in and of itself. We don’t know things, we aren’t aware of things and this is fine if we can admit it and remain humble and teachable and open to instruction and on to path of learning.
But the problem is this: we have the gall to be so very arrogant in our ignorance. As we “grow up” it seems for many it becomes more and more impossible to inspire us with the wonder, awe, and worship that every child is naturally gifted with. Our pride makes these impossible.
I have, however, met a few who are quite the opposite and grow more and more in wonder and awe of God and his creation and the simultaneous complexity and simplicity and beauty of life. These people enjoy life and people and themselves and most of all, God. They inspire me. I want to be on the path they are on and, thankfully, I believe I’m headed that way.
I haven’t blogged much on spiritual topics for several months because I had thought it was a waste of time. Who cares anyway whether I blog? Why try anymore to inspire others or to change hearts when people seem so stubborn and deaf to the truth? Perhaps I say this because I’ve come to know my own heart better. Perhaps I say this because I think too often of poor specimens to represent humans (perhaps I’m one of those poor specimens). And why am I so arrogant to think I was in a position to dispense enlightenment and inspiration to others anyway? I know what a capacity I have, at times, for dismissing the wonder and worship from my own life and for suppressing the glorious truth of Jesus.
BUT, I want to be inspired. I want to wonder and be in awe and truly worship God with all of my heart! And I want the same for you!
My three year old little girl Ellie helps inspire me and cause me to worship. I have been reading bible stories about Jesus to her from the Gospel of John.
My facebook post about it:
Ellies new bed time story book: The Gospel of John. We covered the story of Jesus raising Lazarus. Yesterday we covered the story when he turned water into yummy drink for the wedding celebration (it helped that she experienced some yummy drink (punch with serbert) at a wedding celebration earlier that day), and tonight the story of when Jesus drove out all the means and bads with a whip from the temple where God meant everything to be happy and loving, good and fun!
It has been so fun to excitedly act the stories out and communicate to her on her level. The other night as I put her to bed I asked if she wanted to pray. She prayed, “Jesus, please take all the means and scaries away. We love you God. You have a beautiful heart. You are the very bestest friend in all the world that I can see.”
I cried.
Yes, perhaps there is an ugliness and darkness that lives in the heart of every human and perhaps this is often distressing, frightening, saddening, and frustrating. But Jesus has a beautiful heart. He never gives up lovingly pursuing us and wooing us and trying to inspire us with themes of grace and love. He never gives up moving us toward redemption, relieving us of our profound ignorance and humbling our greatest enemy – our own pride.
“Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance” (1 Corinthians 13:7)
He doesn’t give up and we shouldn’t give up on each other either.
Please pray for me! Perhaps God will work wonders and inspire and enable me to serve him in unimaginable ways to inspire others to love God and recognize his beautiful heart. This is my prayer.
This topic of wonder reminds me of a man who sobbed at the sight of a rainbow. I blogged about that here: http://walkthroughtheword.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/genesis-redemptive-story/
Camping Trip at Nicolet National Forest – May 24th, 2013
The Plan:
Camp, fish, and explore the Whisker lake wilderness area of the Nicolet National Forest just west of Florence Wisconsin.
My friend Joe and I arrived at Perch Lake the morning of the 24th of May and planned to camp overnight. As soon as we stepped into the forest I noticed a plant I had read about and seen a couple of times in my childhood. Trillium. The forest was littered with it. (Littered is definitely not the best choice of words for this beautiful flowering wild edible.) I was fairly convinced it was Trilluim, (which was one of Euell Gibbons favorite wild edibles) so I started munching on a leaf. It tasted like spicy lettuce.
Joe exhibited ALOT of trust in my judgement and was snacking on Trillium and other wild edibles with me. (Caution: Properly identify and prepare wild edibles before consuming).
Before long we were thinking, ‘why did we bring food with us?’ It was all around us, free for the taking.
I soon spotted what looked like wild leeks, but with so many look alikes, I wanted to be sure. Eventually it was the smell that gave it away. The forest was tinged with the aroma of onion. I ended up collecting a bit to bring home and made a dinner of a white bass and wild leek.
(I must mention that this was perhaps the worst fish filleting I have ever done. Not only did it take me forever to fillet the 13 inch white bass, but I managed to somehow include every bone possible. Other than that it was quite tasty – Ellie liked the wild leek too!)
Our campsite was really nice on the west side of Perch lake. I was right in thinking we’d beat the Memorial day crowd to the five campsites by getting there so early on Friday.
Here is the view from our campsite:
and at night:
After setting up camp we went on a hike around lake Lauterman. We sampled some cattail shoots and had some great conversations.
The fishing at Perch lake was not what we expected. Apparently some ice fisherman with way to much time on his hands emptied the lake last winter of the massive Bluegill we had been told about. Or they were just avoiding my big and very obvious yellow canoe.
The cons of the trip:
1.) Ticks! We pulled off dozens of ticks while we were there and I spent the first few hours in my sleeping bag removing ticks and throwing them out the tent. The first thing I googled when I got home was “how to remove a tick” as I found that two had attached to my leg.
The highlights of the trip:
1.) My friend Joe. We laughed a lot and had a great time. I am glad to call him a friend and am thankful we get to spend eternity together as brothers – all thanks to our big brother Jesus.
2.) The wild edibles. It was cool to enjoy God’s bountiful provision of wild foods all around us on the trip. We ran into a couple who had an interest in wild foods as well and they asked me about which fern fiddleheads were good to eat and how to prepare them (by the way, fern fiddleheads must be cooked and avoid those covered with fuzzy hairs – otherwise enjoy like asparagus).
3.) The workout. Who needs P90X when you are lugging backpacks, hiking, portaging canoes and paddling around a lake. It was great!
Next time we’ll bring nothing but a knife, flint and a few survival essentials and survive a week in the rugged remote wilderness… or not.
Canoe Trip on the Wolf River – May 9th 2012
The plan:
Canoe from New London to Weiland Landing and fish for walleye and white bass along the way. This is a 12 mile journey by car and, I guestimated, 21 miles by river. If we made excellent time with the flow of the river, we would continue on to Freemont.
Walleye had been running the river for a few weeks and their were many male walleye who would be there for another couple of weeks after the females had already returned to their respective lakes of Poygan or Winnebego. The white bass had been just starting to flood the river on their annual migration to spawn and I’d read reports of people bring home 80 to 100 or more white bass a day. There is no limit on this particular extremely prolific fish and it was neat to see entire Hmong families lined up along some of the public access points along the lower Wolf river taking advantage of this annual feast.
My friend Nick and I arrived and put in the river at the boat launch at around 5:30 a.m. We wanted to get in the river before dawn to take advantage of that peak few hours of increased fish activity (especially the walleye who, with their excellent eyesight, excel in this low light situation to feast on minnows). I got our poles baited up and dangling in the water off the sides of the canoe and even before we stepped into the canoe a twelve inch small mouth bass jumped on our line! It had to be 14 inches to be legal so we threw it back but this excited me about the fishing conditions. I would soon be disappointed by the lack of fish from that point on.
As we passed a place where a man was fishing from shore, I snagged his line. As I brought it up I saw the smallest catfish I’d ever seen dangling from the end of his line. “You have a fish!” I told him and asked him kindly to throw my line back in as I held on to a rock at the shoreline. He called back, “Great, a baby catfish. Just what I don’t need.”
We stopped at a few spots along the way that looked promising, but no luck. No matter. We were really enjoying the river and the conversation and eventually caught a few fish. Two walleye, and one white bass.
I love this photo. Picturesque Wolf River and a bloody walleye.
The highlight of the trip was when I had fish number four on the line. “Grab the net! Grab the net!” I told Nick excitedly. I swung the large white bass up into the boat, apparently a little too close to Nick. He dodged the fish and went straight over the side. The next moment I was upside down under water thinking to myself, “How did this happen?”
We both were laughing so hard as we swam with the canoe to shore. As I stepped on shore I said, “I’ve got an idea. Let’s start a fire!” It had been sprinkling off and on for some of the day already but now it started to rain more consistently and the temperatures were plummeting from 60’s down to 50’s.
We quickly gathered dry grass for tinder and kindling but our lighters were damp and would not light. So I grabbed my flint and steel and sent showers of 1500 degree sparks into the “dry” grass. Nick said, “I’ve got an idea”, and came back with bug spray. “This is flammable” he said and started to spray down the tinder.
The next shower of sparks lit the whole thing ablaze and soon we had a fire and were drying our clothes and warming ourselves. What an epic Bear Grylls moment. It was awesome!
(By the way, it isn’t a good idea to set a lighter next to a fire to dry out.)
It seemed that everyone else had given up on the river due to the weather. We didn’t see another boat the entire time we were there. I was determined to press on to our goal, but Nick was in shorts and T-shirt and wet and wisely chose to call it quits at the next boat landing at Guths landing next to Pigeon Crop Lake. (Guths is pronounced like and probably often mistaken for “Goose”. I was corrected a few times by the locals.)
Even though I lost my pole, my filet knife, and broke another pole, we had a great time and made some great memories.
Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ – Joseph Prince
“For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” – (John 1:17 NIV)
As you may have noticed from earlier blogs, I have been really blessed lately by the teachings of Joseph Prince. I feel that he speaks very eloquently of Grace and, as a recovering legalist, it is a message I certainly need to hear!
Here are a few notes and quotes from this teaching:
God is not about behavior modification, he is about heart transformation.
People worry that if you preach only grace, that people will have a license to sin. But have you noticed that people are sinning without a license? But this isn’t what Scripture says will happen if we preach grace:
“Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.” (Romans 6:14 NLT)
“For the grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people. And we are instructed (by this grace) to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God, while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed.” (Titus 2:11-13)
No one in the church, it seems, teaches pure law, but a mixture of law and grace. But Jesus said you cannot put new wine (grace) in an old wineskin (law).
There has been a change in our relationship to the law since the cross.
The law condemns the best of us, but grace saves the worst of us.
God calls the law written in stone, the ministry of death. He is speaking of the ten commandments:
“Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?” (2 Corinthians 3:7-8 NIV)
Grace is the ministry of the Spirit!
You cannot be under water and not be wet any more than you can be under grace and not be holy.
Those who are loved best, love best. Those who know that are forgiven totally and completely, forgive others totally and completely.
Love is the fulfilling of the law. Grace is God’s unconditional love love for you completely independent of our performance. You can’t mess this up, for where sin abounds grace much more abounds.
“God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant.” (Romans 5:20 NLT)
We love because he first loved us. We love God, and we love each other, as we are loved by God – as we allow his love to permeate our hearts. Are you letting yourself be loved by God?
Daniel Lovett
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