Years ago my mother told me about a tape she had heard describing the sharp intake of breath you experience when you see something extraordinary, specifically when you come into a room and see someone you love very much—whether spouse or child. The speaker said we all need that feeling in our lives.
And then there’s the sentiment you see on bumper stickers and t-shirts that showed up in the 2005 movie “Hitch” and on a George Strait album in 2009: It’s not the breaths you take that matter, it’s the moments that take your breath away.”
Let’s call it, for the sake of a catchy title (easier to express in print than a sharp intake of breath) the Wow Factor. You hear something along the same lines during American Idol or America’s Got Talent, although usually in the negative. “There just wasn’t any ‘wow factor,’” Simon might comment. Or maybe, “you did so well the last time, I was expecting you to bring ‘the wow factor’ tonight.”
The problem with people being the focus of our Wow Factors is that they, like competing singers or dancers or jugglers or magicians, eventually disappoint, eventually fail. We still love a handful of people, regardless—they are our family, our closest friends. There is an unconditional love that even the most hard-hearted among us may experience, at least in part.
Because the Bible tells us that “God is love” (1 John 4:7-8) I believe that our ability to love without selfishness or reward or even being loved in return, is a gift from God, a part of his nature passed on to us at Creation through Adam and Eve, who were made “in the image of God” (Genesis 5:1). That we find it so difficult to love results from the sin nature Adam passed down to us as well (Genesis 5:3).
God gave us the ability to love and commanded us to love him before anyone or anything else, with all our hearts, minds, souls, strength…but he disappoints us too. God’s purposes can not be thwarted (Job 42:1) but we don’t always like what those purposes entail. When we forget that he is God (not us) we begin to lose the Wow Factor we had initially.
Revelation 2:4 warns the church in Ephesus for abandoning their “first love” for God. Just as every human relationship requires vigilance, communication, protection, active participation, etc. our relationships with God do too. Without the pursuit of God, without seeking him and fellowship with him (not just his gifts and answers and miracles)…without taking steps in his direction, in other words…we find ourselves sliding further back from him, like one of those airport automatic sidewalks in reverse.
God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) expresses himself to us in different ways, but he promises to never leave us, which makes him a wonderful companion, worthy of our constant praise. Worthy of those sharp intakes of breath.
Wow. If you’ve lost it, pray about how to get back that “first love.”
And then there’s the sentiment you see on bumper stickers and t-shirts that showed up in the 2005 movie “Hitch” and on a George Strait album in 2009: It’s not the breaths you take that matter, it’s the moments that take your breath away.”
Let’s call it, for the sake of a catchy title (easier to express in print than a sharp intake of breath) the Wow Factor. You hear something along the same lines during American Idol or America’s Got Talent, although usually in the negative. “There just wasn’t any ‘wow factor,’” Simon might comment. Or maybe, “you did so well the last time, I was expecting you to bring ‘the wow factor’ tonight.”
The problem with people being the focus of our Wow Factors is that they, like competing singers or dancers or jugglers or magicians, eventually disappoint, eventually fail. We still love a handful of people, regardless—they are our family, our closest friends. There is an unconditional love that even the most hard-hearted among us may experience, at least in part.
Because the Bible tells us that “God is love” (1 John 4:7-8) I believe that our ability to love without selfishness or reward or even being loved in return, is a gift from God, a part of his nature passed on to us at Creation through Adam and Eve, who were made “in the image of God” (Genesis 5:1). That we find it so difficult to love results from the sin nature Adam passed down to us as well (Genesis 5:3).
God gave us the ability to love and commanded us to love him before anyone or anything else, with all our hearts, minds, souls, strength…but he disappoints us too. God’s purposes can not be thwarted (Job 42:1) but we don’t always like what those purposes entail. When we forget that he is God (not us) we begin to lose the Wow Factor we had initially.
Revelation 2:4 warns the church in Ephesus for abandoning their “first love” for God. Just as every human relationship requires vigilance, communication, protection, active participation, etc. our relationships with God do too. Without the pursuit of God, without seeking him and fellowship with him (not just his gifts and answers and miracles)…without taking steps in his direction, in other words…we find ourselves sliding further back from him, like one of those airport automatic sidewalks in reverse.
God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) expresses himself to us in different ways, but he promises to never leave us, which makes him a wonderful companion, worthy of our constant praise. Worthy of those sharp intakes of breath.
Wow. If you’ve lost it, pray about how to get back that “first love.”
Permission to reprint with acknowledgement of source.
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