The Connection Between Dwelling & Discerning Wonder

When this website was started, I wrote an article explaining the meaning behind the name Discerning Wonder. If you haven’t had a chance to read that, you can find it here. In that article though, I mentioned that there were some other reasons behind the name besides the main one. Last month, I mentioned the connection to my Working Geniuses, but another one of those reasons has to do with the word Dwell.

As I was exploring names for this website, and was considering Discerning Wonder the initials “DW” really stood out at me, and made me immediately think of the word Dwell. I’ve never really been one to jump on the bandwagon of choosing a word for the year like so many do lately, but thanks to some things God was teaching me last fall I came into this year with the word Dwell heavy on my heart and mind. So each time I write down or notice the initials of Discerning Wonder it seems to point me back to that word, Dwell.

The importance of dwelling with God was something that He really began speaking to me about in the last year. It’s not that the concept of dwelling with Him was new to me. When I first asked Him to be my Savior and Lord at seven years old, I was taught the importance of spending time with God and remaining in Him. At a young age, I memorized John 15:5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” I’ve taught numerous lessons about this idea of remaining in Him. Yet, this past fall, God really called me to task that I was spending so much time dwelling in other things. Allowing other things, like my own to do lists, to guide and direct my steps, my thoughts, my energy, and my heart. He challenged me to really experience life dwelling in Him, and I have to say that it was a remarkable breath of fresh air. The peace, freedom, and rest that I experienced in dwelling in Him was incredible. It shouldn’t have been so surprising because I knew this in my head and had told others it was the case, but experiencing it on a deeper level than ever before was refreshing and wonderful.

It was in this experience of dwelling in God that I was finally able to begin to recapture some of the wonder that had been missing in my life, or least begin to see the wonder that had always been around me. When I was spending more time dwelling in my to do list than dwelling in God, it was difficult to notice, let alone feel wonder. This connection, and the importance of dwelling in Him can be seen throughout Scripture. I particularly like how the psalmist expressed it in Psalm 27:4

One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.

Oh, that this would be our prayer each and every day of our lives, that we would desire this deeply to dwell in Him daily. How exactly do we do that though? I believe it starts with this:

Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.

(Colossians 3:16)

There is so much good advice in that verse. When we allow His message, His Word to dwell in us and surround ourselves with it in word and song, and teaching and sharing, it helps us to dwell in Him. But ultimately, just surrounding ourselves with His message is not enough, we must choose, every day and every moment, to dwell in Him. This means spending time with Him, dedicated time and ongoing time talking to Him as we walk through the day. Time that is not just talking but listening too, and then doing what He tells us. It’s not always easy. The world around us is full of distractions and pressures, but it is worth it. So I borrow the words of Paul in Ephesians 3:16-19 as my prayer for all of us today:

That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.