The Wonder of It All

When her mother came to pick her up after the first day of Vacation Bible School, she took Mommy’s hand and led her into the big meeting room. With wide eyes and a quiet kind of awe in her four-year-old voice, she said “This is where the music is.”

Then she escorted Mommy all around the room, slowly showing her the dozens of balloons (an attempt to look like undersea bubbles), the inflatable shark and sea-turtle, the pictures of whales, the big sea-horse, the big fishing net, and the place where the lady stood and led them in all those fun songs about Jesus.

Over and over she said, “Look, Mommy!” as she pointed at another picture or balloon.

“Look Mommy!”

“Look Mommy!”

“Look!”

And, though she wasn’t speaking to me, I too began to look. And to see.

During much of our preparation for Vacation Bible School, during which we tried to transform our sanctuary into a kind of undersea world, I could think of little except how much work our volunteers were putting in. But then, as the first day of our week-long adventure drew to a close, God gave me a glimpse of the whole endeavor through the eyes of a four-year-old. Suddenly, the wonder was there, as it should have been all along.

The wonder is not simply that a group of busy adults would spend more than a hundred hours decorating a church building for a VBS program. That kind of effort commonly takes place, in churches throughout this community, many times over every summer. The wonder is not that these adults and youth put in hours of preparation and prayer, baked thousands of cookies, and put up with unnumbered inconveniences to make their church’s Vacation Bible School programs as successful as possible.

The wonder is not in the effort or the program.

The wonder truly is seen in what lies behind the effort: hearts touched by God, full of His love, and gripped by a passion to share His love with others and let the little children come to Him, no matter how much work it takes.

The wonder is in the outpoured love of God seen in His Son dying on the cross for wide-eyed four-year-olds and weary middle-aged pastors alike.

The wonder is the fact that He loved His rebellious creation so much that He came and lived among the rebels themselves, and even took the just punishment for their rebellion upon Himself.

I remember, when I was just a little child myself, my dad singing the words of a song made famous by one of the singers in Billy Graham’s ministry, George Beverly Shea. “Oh, the wonder of it all! The wonder of it all! Just to think that God loves me!”

Indeed. Just think of it. And then, like a little child, come to Jesus again, and thank Him for how much He loves you. It’s a wonder!