By Brian Allred
I see trees of green
Red roses, too.
I see them bloom
For me and you,
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world.
These words were famously sung by Louis Armstrong [1]. And there is something profoundly true in them. This is a wonderful world. Yes, the world is under the curse of sin and is often ugly, dark, brutal, and fractured. And yet—yet—the fingerprints of divine glory can still be detected in our lives and throughout all creation. David sings in Psalm 9:1: “I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.” As Thanksgiving approaches, these words remind us that we, too, can and should give thanks to the Lord and recount all of his wonderful deeds because there are countless wonders in which to delight [2].
To wonder or marvel is to be impressed, wowed, astounded, and awed in recognition of the greatness and goodness that’s around us – and ultimately in recognition of the goodness and greatness of the God of wonder. Recognizing and recounting wonder in three areas can stir us to richer and deeper expressions of thanksgiving during this holiday season.
The Wonder of Creation
First, consider the wonder of creation. In his book Practicing Thankfulness, Sam Crabtree asks: “What makes something marvelous? What aspects make it marvel-worthy? Consider things like scale: how big, vast, fast, powerful is it? Things like scope: what else does it impact? … Is it universal in its impact, influencing everything else? … Does it convey grandeur?” [3]. With these things in mind, one of the first things we might think of is the wonder of space [4]. Consider the number of galaxies. Ponder the celestial bodies in our own solar system, like Jupiter with its giant red spot that itself is roughly the size of the entire earth [5]. Think about the brightness and glory of our sun and the beauty that’s radiated as it sets beneath the horizon. Contemplate the brilliance of the silvery moon and wonder that we have a moon.
But your mind need not go to such distant spheres. The wonder of creation includes things as proximate and ordinary as the colors of the seasons: the green of summer and the browns, oranges, and purples of autumn. Creation’s marvels include atmospheric events like rain, snow, clouds, and fog. Let’s not omit the wonders of the animal world: the unpredictable way they look, the things they can do, and the things they can learn. Then there’s food: pineapples like candy growing out of the ground, syrup oozing out of trees and then seeping into and off of a stack of blueberry pancakes, potatoes and all the different ways you can make them delicious. There’s also the wonder of music and other works of art that highlight the creative capacities of humanity.
“The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.”
– G. K. Chesterton
Indeed, we ourselves are part of the wonder of creation. St. Augustine observed: “Men go forth to marvel at the heights of mountains and the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the rivers, the vastness of the ocean, the orbits of the stars, and yet they neglect to marvel at themselves” [6]. The human body is a wonder [7]. Consider how amazing something as seemingly routine as muscle contraction is. Human muscle contraction is a complex physiological process primarily involving the interaction between actin and myosin, two proteins in muscle fibers. The process is initiated when a motor neuron releases the neurotransmitter acetylcholine at the neuromuscular junction, triggering an action potential that travels along the muscle fiber. This action potential leads to the release of calcium ions from the sarcoplasmic reticulum, an internal storage site within muscle cells. Calcium binds to troponin, a regulatory protein on the actin filament, causing a shift that moves tropomyosin away from binding sites on actin. This exposure allows the myosin heads, which have been energized by the breakdown of ATP, to bind to actin, forming cross-bridges. With each cross-bridge cycle, myosin heads pull actin filaments toward the center of the sarcomere, the functional unit of muscle contraction. This pulling action shortens the sarcomere and, cumulatively, the entire muscle. Presto—contraction! All of this just to squeeze your first or stand up from your chair, and all in a fraction of a second [8]. Respiration, blood pressure, hearing, and countless other common physiological processes make the same point: we are living, breathing, walking wonders!
Are you awake to all the wonders in creation? Dustin Crowe challenges readers in The Grumblers Guide to Giving Thanks: “… ask yourself if you live in such a way as to recognize the gifts around you or if you walk by them, missing or ignoring them” [9]. Mary Oliver writes: “To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work” [10]. G. K. Chesterton rightly adds: “The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder” [11].
Are you marveling? More importantly, are you responding to the wonders and marvels around you with thanksgiving to God? As John Calvin put it: “… we are well-nigh overwhelmed by so great and so plenteous an outpouring of benefactions, by so many and mighty miracles discerned wherever one looks, that we never lack reason and occasion for praise and thanksgiving” [12]. It is true: we live in a world of wonders. Recount them, write them down, and give utterance in thanksgiving like David in Psalm 9.
The Wonder of Salvation
A second area of wonder is the wonder of salvation. In Crabtree’s book, he asks: “… what sharpens one’s ability to apprehend distinctions between the marvelous and the mundane? For one thing: contrast” [13]. When we consider the contrast between what we deserve as sinful people and what God has provided by the wonders of his grace in salvation through Jesus, it provokes thanksgiving. For example, listen to the contrasts catalogued in a prayer from The Valley of Vision, a rich and moving collection of Puritan prayers:
Christ was all anguish that I might be all joy,
cast off that I might be brought in,
trodden down as an enemy that I might be welcomed as a friend,
surrendered to hell's worst that I might attain heaven's best,
stripped that I might be clothed,
wounded that I might be healed,
athirst that I might drink,
tormented that I might be comforted,
made a shame that I might inherit glory,
entered darkness that I might have eternal light.
My Savior wept that all tears might be wiped from my eyes,
groaned that I might have endless song,
endured all pain that I might have unfading health,
bore a thorned crown that I might have a glory-diadem,
bowed his head that I might uplift mine,
experienced reproach that I might receive welcome,
closed his eyes in death that I might gaze on unclouded brightness,
expired that I might forever live.
O Father, who spared not thine only Son that thou might spare me
… help me to adore thee by lips and life [14].
One of the ways we adore him by lips and life is offering our words and hearts in thanksgiving for the glorious wonder of our salvation in Jesus.
Along similar lines, Charles Spurgeon wrote: “[I]f you must have a little list of what he has given you, ponder the following: He has given you a name and a place among his people. He has given you the rights and nature of his sons. He has given you the complete forgiveness of all your sins, and you have it now. He has given you a robe of righteousness which you are wearing now. He has given you a superlative loveliness in Christ Jesus. He has given you access to him and acceptance at the mercy seat. He has given you this world and the worlds to come. He has given you all that he has. He has given you his own Son, and how shall he now refuse you anything? Oh, he has given as only God could” [15]. That our salvation should serve to awaken our hearts, provoke wonder, and stir us to thanksgiving is captured by Nancy DeMoss when she writes: “undeniable guilt, plus undeserved grace, should equal unbridled gratitude” [16].
The Wonder of God
Finally, note a third area for wonder: the wonder of God himself. We live in a world of wonder because our God is a God of wonder. The wonders of creation and redemption point us to the Source of everything wonderful. As Jonathan Edwards reminded us about our earthly joys: “These are but shadows; but the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams; but God is the sun. These are but streams; but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean” [17].
We live in a world of wonder because our God is a God of wonder.
Beholding wonder should provoke thanksgiving not only to God but for God; not only for what he has done in his work of creation and in his work of redemption, but for who he is as the God of wonder. Paul Tripp sums it up well: “Horizontal awe is meant to do one thing: stimulate vertical … Every awesome thing in creation is designed to point you to the One who alone is worthy of capturing and controlling the awe of your searching and hungry heart” [18]. So let’s join David in our resolve to spend not only this season but all our days “continually giving thanks to the Lord with our whole hearts and recounting all of his wonders.”
This article is a modified version of a message delivered during a Thanksgiving service at New Life Presbyterian Church in 2024.
[1] The song was composed by Bob Thiele and George David Weiss and recorded by Armstrong in 1967.
[2] The phrase translated wonderful deeds in Psalm 9:1 is from the Hebrew word פָּלָא and can be translated as “wonders” (see Exodus 3:20 and Joshua 3:5), “marvelous things” (see Psalm 98:1), or “marvels” (see Exodus 34:10).
[3] Sam Crabtree, Practicing Thankfulness (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 86.
[4] David’s mind goes here in Psalm 19:1: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork,” and in Psalm 8:3-4: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”
[5] According to Hubble Space Telescope observations, the red spot is shrinking but is still approximately 10,250 miles across. See https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasas-hubble-shows-jupiters-great-red-spot-is-smaller-than-ever-measured/.
[6] St. Augustine, Confessions (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1999), 211-212.
[7] When David marveled in Psalm 139 that he was “fearfully and wonderfully made,” he used the same Hebrew word that we find in Psalm 9:1.
[8] I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in health science. I had to review the chapter on muscle physiology in an old college textbook for this summary! See Lauralee Sherwood, Fundamentals of Physiology: A Human Perspective (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company, 1991), 158-174.
[9] Dustin Crowe, The Grumbler’s Guide to Giving Thanks (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2020), 72.
[10] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/84287-to-pay-attention-this-is-our-endless-and-proper-work.
[11] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/84797-the-world-will-never-starve-for-want-of-wonders-but.
[12] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 888.
[13] Sam Crabtree, Practicing Thankfulness, 86.
[14] Arthur Bennett, ed. The Valley of Vision (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), 42.
[15] Charles Spurgeon, The Practice of Praise (Springdale, PA: Whitaker House, 1995), 18.
[16] Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Choosing Gratitude: Your Journey to Joy (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2009), 35.
[17] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/99178-god-is-the-highest-good-of-the-reasonable-creature-the.
[18] Paul David Tripp, Awe: Why It Matters for Everything We Think, Say, and Do (Wheaton: IL, Crossway, 2015).
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