Chapter 1 - The Brilliance of Seeing
Opening Our Eyes to God’s Wonder
IN THIS LESSON
Welcome to MARVELING.
Our goal for this course is to counter our culture of hurry, noise, and desecration by providing you with a place to evaluate your daily routine, an opportunity to transform your mindset, and inspire you toward deeper intimacy with God.
“He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.”
— Albert Einstein
To Marvel—
To marvel is to participate in the world. It's getting off screens and into the natural world and being together. And, of course, it’s about so much more.
The way of marveling is about seeing. But not just seeing with the eyes in your head. It's about a deeper sight of the soul.
To "see" is to interpret the world around you visually and spiritually. This is how God intended us to interact with the world.
He created the world to communicate his love for us. To walk in the way of Marveling, we adopt habits that help us see the wonders of God's creation daily. But living a life of marveling is more than looking wide-eyed at the world. It’s about a way of life and interacting with God.
The Marveling e-course is all about exploring that way of life.
The Marveling Prologue
A course off the beaten path.
I’m so grateful that you’ve chosen to take the plunge and join me and my wife, Christine, in learning how God uses beauty and wonder to mold us into people of humble hearts.
You and I feel it every day—the pull on our hearts and souls. We want something more in this life.
We want to feel every inch of beauty and wonder whether we know how to articulate it or not.
Take just under 15 minutes and listen to The Marveling Prologue. It will give you a thirty-thousand-foot view of what to expect as you work through each module. Then, scroll down and download our “Vision for Daily Living” printable.
Download the journal prompts.
Download the PDF printable below. Take some time to answer the journal prompts.
Permission to be yourself.
The joy of marveling is for everyone.
Prepping to Marvel
To be a Marveling person or family, you don’t need to be super-artsy, an interior decorator, or an advanced art history degree.
You need to be curious and willing to move out of your comfort zone and see the world with fresh eyes. The joy of discovering God through natural beauty is a reward in itself. This joy will fuel your imagination and desire to dig deeper into this big, beautiful world God created for us.
We’re not a perfect family. We certainly don’t know everything there is to know about the natural world, but we love daily experiencing God’s wonder and glory through our senses and exploring his character through his creation. We invite you to come along with us and learn together.
What you’ll need for the course.
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A good journal.
A journal is essential for marveling. Get something you’ll love. Let your journal reflect your personality. There are no rules here for the type of journal you can use. But we’ll ask you many times to use your journal. It’ll be a kind of home base for you. Encourage your children and spouse to journal if you use The Marveling Series for your homeschool or family devotions. The discipline of writing and thinking is essential for deep transformational learning.
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Some walking shoes.
In our courses, you will be asked repeatedly to get out of your house. This course requires you to get active and get outside. Of course, if you already have a pair of outdoor shoes you like to walk in, then that’s great! We're just making sure and having a bit of fun. Getting into the natural world is essential for marveling and interacting with God's creation. He intended for us to live in the tapestry of his creation, not live isolated from it.
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A healthy mindset.
You will need a “can-do” attitude. Our world likes to plant seeds of skepticism in our minds and hearts. One of the aims of this course is to help you shed the negative mindset our world promotes. Spend some time in prayer, and ask God to refresh your spirit with this course. Pray also for physical renewal too. Re-engaging with the created order can do wonders for our mental health, physical well-being, and spiritual fortitude. Learning is growing, in every way.
Your homework.
Be risky.
With a course like this, it’s essential to permit yourself to change your thinking and your actions. A wonder-full life is attainable for everyone. But we must be willing to risk change. In your journal, answer this question: “Have I let myself fall into a rut with how I think about this world, my place in it, and how God designed me to live in it?”
Be free.
Wonder, awe, beauty—they relate. You might say that when beauty vanishes from our lives, so does wonder. Why does beauty vanish? Because we let the world capture our souls. But it’s time to shed the shackles of the world and enter into the kind of freedom for which God created us. In your journal, answer this question: “Have I inadvertently removed beauty from my daily experience? Have I ceased to marvel at God’s wonders?
Be a rebel.
Get your rebel yell ready. Just kidding. But being someone who seeks a different rhythm than the one the world offers is an act of rebellion in our world. This course aims to help you cultivate a childlike view of the natural order. In your journal, answer these questions: “Have I fallen in line and relinquished my unique voice and perspective? Have I surrendered the person I know myself to be for the person I feel the world wants me to be?