We celebrate a long list of people acclaimed for their achievements: Olympic athletes excelling at their sport, college and professional athletes winning tournaments, arts and entertainment stars ‘owning’ the red carpet, scientists hailing breakthroughs in all branches, architects conceiving, and realizing, their marvels, far-stretching technological advances in the multiplicity of disciplines, and so much more. There’s a vicarious sense of ‘us,’ of shared glory, as we cheer on the winners, subtly basking in the oversplash of the thunderous applause, the Kudos, the adulation. It seems God has designed us to thrill at being amazed, at being rendered speechless, at being shocked at the development of things to us unfathomable.
And, it must be said that God apparently loves being the One doing the amazing! Just think: the Red Sea, manna, quail, the walls of Jericho, fire from heaven to consume an entire, water-soaked altar, befuddling whole armies, thwarting their schemes, a felling pebble shot to a giant’s forehead, a Resurrection! And then, creating a church, His body, out of wayward, easily distracted, regularly confused, freshly adopted, human beings! And that, on purpose! Further, completely saturating these divinely commissioned-in-spite-of-themselves, slightly inept ambassadors, with supernatural gifts and wisdom and power and abilities! Jesus told his disciples he had much more to say to them, but it would be too much for them, so he practiced incredible restraint. The Apostle John wrote that if everything Jesus said and did were to be written down there would not be enough books in the whole world to contain them! Always more! More amazement, more joy, more discoveries, more whodathunkits. Simply unending – more! And we find ourselves the beneficiaries of this ‘more.’ With plenty already available and at hand but mesmerizingly more of this ‘more’ stored up and accessible through prayerful rejoicing, audacious daring, a type of asking that would be punishably impertinent if Scripture hadn’t told us to go for it, to live this ‘more’ out loud for all to hear. If our heads aren’t spinning by now, it must be because we’re not paying attention! “No eye has seen, no ear has heard…” Wow! PD
Don graduated from Regent University in 1988 and moved to France for seven years, coming back to the US briefly to marry Sue in 1990. The work in France included working in a Christian School and helping plant a church before returning in 1995. He’s been pastor of Peninsula Vineyard since 1999. He enjoys counseling, especially married couples, traveling back to France (with Sue), reading, doing Sudoku puzzles and sleuthing out good, dark chocolate. Don serves as the senior pastor of the Vineyard Church Peninsula, in Newport News, Virginia.