Have you ever thought about how overexposed we are to things which should capture our imagination? How we have grown accustomed to things which should terrify us? Things which should enamor us? Things we should never have gotten used to?
Yet we have.
I remember one moment in particular in which I was reminded how I had lost my childlike wonder in something as simple as a childhood hero.
It was 2014 and America was attempting another take on the classic cultural icon Godzilla. The movie was helmed by Gareth Edwards (who did a great job on his other movie titled Monsters) and seemed to be moving in the right direction with the creature designs and the creative processes (notably, the decision to always view the monsters from a perspective a human could have; i.e. from a building or a vehicle). Edwards had a clear vision in mind for the monsters and executed it well (although the movie was far from perfect).
Godzilla was one of my favorite movie icons as a kid. The sheer size, power, and mystery of the character captured me when I would watch any of the 30 or so films that were around during my childhood years. But over time, as I watched the movies over and over again, I lost the wonder of Godzilla. Everything had to be bigger and better or else I would lose interest even in the monster fights. I resorted to the bigger action-focused movies where Godzilla would fight an unprecedented number of foes (such as Destroy All Monsters) rather than the ones that focused on what Godzilla represented (such as the original Gojira or The Return of Godzilla). And then the 2014 movie came out and reawakened my awe for the character.
One scene in particular grabbed my attention (the clip is available at the beginning of this post), and that’s Godzilla’s entrance. The titular monster finally shows up an hour into his own movie. And although the wait was long, the five minute sequence leading up to our first major look at the big G was worth it.
He comes ashore, causing a tsunami in his massive wake, and every human in each shot is silent, still, and looking straight up at him, marveling at his size and presence. Each shot we get of Godzilla is silent, the only noise coming from the soldiers who initially try to shoot him until they realize their weapons are useless against him. Then, amidst a scene of chaos, Godzilla takes a single step and every single person in the chaos stops, immediately becomes silent, and stares at him. He lets out his signature roar, and the scene ends.
This scene reawakened my awe in the brute force of Godzilla. The small act of him coming ashore causes something as powerful as a tsunami. A single step immediately causes everything around him to shut up and look up. His roar demands everything around him take notice of him. Everything in that five minute sequence causes him to become the focal point and he commands your attention as soon as he enters the scene.
This is what we must do in our everyday lives as well. We must let the awesome fact that we are alive and capable of making our own choices become awe-inspiring. We must keep the miracles around us: community, life, love, happiness when it comes, and the wonder of the mundane things such as stars in the night sky and the singing of birds outside at the center of our attention. And most importantly, we must keep our awe, wonder, and attention focused on God as the Great Creator of it all.
The mundane things of life: God, His creation, our existence, can quickly be added to the list of things on our backburner. They can quickly be dismissed or fail to be noticed simply because we start to accept them as so commonplace that we ignore them. We cannot let ourselves lose the wonder that accompanies a God who is cosmically involved enough to have angels and unimaginable heavenly hosts sing His praises yet He is also personally involved enough with us that He hears and answers our prayers.
We can quickly dismiss ourselves as unworthy of listening to, but maybe we are overexposed to the thoughts in our heads just like we are overexposed to a small idea of God. Maybe we have accepted our opinions to the point of dismissing them. Maybe we have accepted our own existence to the point of dismissal as well.
In the end, we need to keep the awe and wonder that should excite us into acting as if each moment is a miracle. After all, without God’s grace, this moment would not even exist. And I believe that is a miracle.
Micah Davis
The Soapbox 