Awaking Wonder: Becoming the Mentor Your Child Needsনমুনা

Entering into Wonder and Faith with Our Children

O taste and see that the Lord is good. 

Psalm 34:8

A life of wonder and imagination plays a foundational part in the area of faith. When I sit with a child wrapped in my arms and watch the sun come up and say, “Just look at the sky that God painted for our pleasure this morning,” the child imagines God as the sublime artist of all that is interesting and good. God is the creator of sparkling sunshine, of purples, yellows, and oranges. 

We swirl and dance to rhythmic music and laugh and sing and say, “Just think, God made us to hear, feel, enjoy, and sway to music that goes deep into our being.” We smack our lips as we feast together on bubbling creamy potato soup with warm bread and melting butter, affirming, “Aren’t we glad God thought up butter and chocolate and all the tasty things we get to eat every day?” 

When children observe the intricate beauty and coldness of a snowflake, the warm morning sunrise in summer, the softness of puppy fur, the flash of lightning, the boom of thunder shaking the skies, the sound of music that causes them to dance, the beauty of swans gliding across a lake, the taste of strawberries, or the crunch of pomegranate seeds, they experience deep satisfaction in the world around them. Then we thank God often for the beauty, the artistic design of each leaf, the color of each artifact, and we say, “If you imagined your own world, what would you have created? Doesn’t our artist God have the most amazing imagination?” 

It requires time to notice, to dive deeply into the waters of artistic design and playful imagination. Consider peacocks squawking, ducks waddling, and snakes slithering, and children become even more aware of the design and diversity of their world and the broad pleasure their playful God had when He imagined what He would place there. 

When they perceive the creativity of the artist Christ and learn to thank Him for a moment of beauty or pleasure, He becomes personal, intimate in their thoughts and experiences. God is more than a philosophy to be known, more than a theology to be espoused. He is a mystery to ponder; a loving Father who created so much beauty and pleasure; a holy, sacred Creator to worship; a Savior who showed compassion; a mysterious wind blowing through their lives to cherish. 

Wonder is the beginning of awaking a child’s love for God, and this is where true education begins. When a parent embraces the role of a mentor, takes Christ as his or her model, is willing to be self-sacrificing to express love to the child, and engages in seeking out all the treasure God has embedded in our world, learning together at home can become a grace-filled adventure. 

Make a plan today to intentionally seek out something beautiful, delicious, awe-inspiring, or delightfully complicated with your child. Talk about it!

This 5-day devotional is inspired by the book Awaking Wonder: Opening Your Child’s Heart to the Beauty of Learning  by Sally Clarkson. In Awaking Wonder, Sally guides you into a holistic, spiritually foundational approach to parenting and education.