I Want To Be "Wow"Ed! Series

(YouTube Video of "Quick Change" Artists from America’s Got Talent)

How cool is that? The first time I saw that couple perform was live at a UK basketball game halftime and I was blown away!

I absolutely love that kind of stuff. The kind of thing that you watch, and your mouth drop opens, and your just thinking, “Wow!”

I love to be fascinated by all kinds of things. And not just illusions. Even musical marvels like this 6 year old kindergarten boy from Florida, Ethan, who can play over 200 songs on the piano by memory.

(The Tonight Show - Ethan Piano Playing Video Clip)

Isn’t that amazing. Or how about a draw dropping trick sports play like this?

(Wrong Ball Trick Play Video Clip)

Isn’t this stuff cool? Are you at all like me? Do you like to be fascinated by unique things? Things that make you just stand-up and say, “Wow!”

Well, I bet at some level you are like me. Because we all have within us this common longing to some degree or another. You may not have it as bad as I do. Truth be told, this may be the strongest of the seven longings in my life.

The longing for beauty? Not so much. The longing to be great? Most days I’m pushing pretty hard just to reach good. But the longing to be fascinated. Now that is one that will get me out of bed in the morning, anxious to see what might be in store.

In every human heart there is a craving to marvel. To be filled with endless wonder. You can see it so obviously and clearly in the smallest of children. Have you ever watched a two or three year old sit down on the ground, staring at a finger? And when you get up close enough to them, you realize that they are sitting there, totally mesmerized with a booger? Ever seen that?

Kids can be amazed so easily. We are born with this desire and pull towards wonderment. But to different degrees as we grow older, we either find that longing pulling us in the wrong direction, or we just kill it assuming it is wrong.

But God has designed us with this desire for fascination and offers Himself as the only satisfaction to this desire. Unfortunately, for many of us, and a danger for all of us, is to substitute money, drugs, alcohol, or immorality in our search to fulfill this craving, and we are left with a completely unsatisfied existence.

The Greeks had their theaters, the Romans their coliseums, and now we have our multiplex theaters where we shell out tons of money that we don’t have to enter a two hour chamber in the hopes of having our heart moved with fascination at what we see. Hoping to be stirred, wowed, inspired once again by earthly entertainment.

But a week later, that movie that so pulled at our heartstrings is forgotten. Boredom sets in, and the search begins again.

In fact, what often happens is that the place we sought to have this longing fulfilled actually becomes repulsive to us. Just listen to this story of a longing to be fascinated leading to total dissatisfaction from God’s Word. (Read 2 Samuel 13:1-15)

The very object of Amnon’s desire, the thing he thought he craved so much, became repulsive to him. She was yesterday’s hit song. A means to satisfying his lust that was no longer fulfilling, and so he cast her aside.

You see, that is the great danger that I face, and each one of us who pursue this longing face, getting bored. . .even despising. . .the object that we looked to in order to be “Wow”ed, and having to seek a more extreme high, and a greater rush.

(Examples: Watching sports on the weekend leading to a bad mood & Riding roller coasters)

Please hear me this morning. At some level and impulse, this longing exists in your heart. And if you attempt to satisfy it anywhere else but at the throne of God, you will be left empty. As with all of these longings, the problem is not the longing. The problem is how we look to fulfill the longing.

The bar will always have to be raised. One beer relaxed me the first time, now it takes two or three. Eventually I’ll need the full bar to give me the numbing effect I desire.

A little marijuana used to give the high I was looking for. But my system got to used to that. So now it is crack cocaine. Meth. A combination of more than one is needed to take me where I want to go.

- Sexual Example

And here is something we better not miss today. As we increase our intake of earthly entertainment we not only dull our capacity to be fascinated by the earthly entertainment, but we dull our capacity to be fascinated by God. Let me say that again. As we increase our intake of earthly entertainment we dull our capacity to be fascinated by God.