Where's the WOW!???

Several times during the past months, I have heard my friend, Marty, burst with a great big “WOW!” I’d raise my head in surprise and look at his face, and sure enough -- “WOW!” was written all over him. It was real and genuinely expressed ---- and I was jealous.

I was born in church (not really!!!) and I can’t remember ever missing being there when the doors were unlocked. I think I had 17 bars of Sunday School pins when I was 17 years old --- perfect attendance! Youth Groups, Junior church, big church, Pioneer Girls, Youth Choir, Big Choir, Wednesday night prayer meeting, Evening services, etc., etc. I think I always knew that God loved me ---- the first Bible verse I remember learning was, “We love Him because He first loved us.” So I learned a lot during all those years.
I heard it over and over and over and over. . . . In a million different ways, different presentations, different people, different lessons.

I went on to Bible School. More of the same, only a little deeper, more concentrated, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Now. . . Here I am in my early 60’s. I recently started attending a church where there are many new Christians. Not only are they young in their faith, but all of this “stuff” is brand new to them. One told me that she had no idea what they were talking about when they told her she needed “A Savior.” She had no inclination of what that meant. She said, “Saved from WHAT?” All the words that we are a part of our Christian “language” were new and foreign and strange to her. Grasping the concepts of the sin of man, a Savior, redemption, the cross, etc. just baffled her and said that there ought to be “beginner classes” for those who come into the church unlearned and new.

It’s been a real eye-opener for me, but at the same time, the most refreshing thing I’ve ever experienced. I’ve wondered how many times I have said things that perhaps went right over the heads of those listening to me? I grew up in a time when most of us all went to church ---- Catholic, Jewish, and Christian --- that’s what we all were in my high school and we all went to our respective churches. I remember years later the shock that came over me when a teenager asked me, “Who was Jesus, anyways?” At that time, I thought everyone in the U.S.A. knew that answer. I definitely know better today.

For me, it has been such a blessing to watch new believers “get it!” And there is just a little, tiny piece of me that wishes I were in their shoes. I would like that “WOW!” feeling once in a while. Yes, I am grateful for all God gave me in my Christian upbringing. But having grown up in it all, taking it in little by little on a daily basis, somehow the wonder and awe and newness was just not there for me.

One of my prayers lately has been that the Lord would show me Himself in a new and “WOW!” way, and that Scriptures that have been memorized and repeated over and over all my life would become new and alive and real ---- just as they are to Marty.

How about you? Do you have any “WOW’s” ? I’d love to hear about them!

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