Wonder, Wow, Wonderings

I haven't read much since being home, but decided to start reading again the other night and I wanted to finish this book (Dangerous Wonder by Michael Yaconelli) that I have now started about five times. It's a really good read and definitely spoke to the child in me. It talks about living life with wonder, which is something I value and something I want to strive for. To enjoy the moment and take it all in completely and let all other cares fall away.

Here are a few quotes that challenged me while reading:

"Christianity is no longer life changing, it is life enhancing. Jesus doesn't change people into wild-eyed radicals anymore, He changes them into "nice people"."

"The Bible names our problem: sin. Don't let the word fool you. Sin is more than turning our backs on God, it is turning our backs on life! Immorality is much more than adultery and dishonesty, it is living drab, colorless, dreary, stale, unimaginative lives. The greatest enemy of Christianity may be people who say they believe in Jesus but who are no longer astonished and amazed. Jesus Christ came to rescue us from listlessness as well as lostness; He came to save us from flat souls as well as corrupted souls. He came to save us from dullness. Our culture is awash in immorality and drowning in dullness. We have forgotten how to dance, how to sing, and how to laugh. WE have allowed technology to beat our imaginations into submission and have become tourists rather than travelers. Television dominates our time, alters our values, numbs us to life in all of its wildness. We have been stunted by mediocrity."

"What is passion? Aliveness. Living with expectancy, anticipation, and enthusiasm. What is the opposite of passion? Dead living. Living a life that is borrrrrring!"

"I believe that most of us have lost our passion: the passion of our marriages, the passion of our jobs, and the passion of our faith."

(this paragraph is preceded by a story of how kids don't color in the lines, but rather just color and so forth..)
"What I am suggesting is that God's grace is so outside the lines of our understanding that we can only stand in awe and wonder. Christianity is not about learning how to live within the lines; Christianity is about the joy of coloring. The grace of God is preposterous enough to accept as beautiful a coloring that anyone else would reject as ugly. The grace of God sees beyond the scribbling to the heart of the scribbler-a scribbler who is similar to two thieves who hung on crosses on either side of Jesus. One of the two asked Jesus to please accept his scribbled and sloppy life into the kingdom of God... and He did. Preposterous. And very good news for the rest of us scribblers."

This is just a taste of what stuck out to me as I read this book. I want to live my life with more passion and abandon. And engage it fully.

The dictionary defines passion as "strong and barely controllable emotion". I tend to control my emotions an try to reign them in as much as possible. I wonder what it would look like if I let the reigns out a little...