Title
Code VII : Wonder 生命密码7: 奇妙
Date
08/16/2026
Description
Psalm 62:5
Yes, my soul, find rest in God;my hope comes from Him.
诗篇 62:5
我的心啊，你当默默无声，专等候神；我的盼望是从祂而来。
Psalm 62:8
Trust only in God every moment!Tell him all your troubles andpour out your heart longings to him;God is our refuge.
诗篇 62:8
你们要时时刻刻信任祂！在祂面前倾心吐意；神是我们的避难所。
Psalm 63:6 8
I lie awake thinking of you,meditating on you through the night.Because you are my helper,I sing for joy in the shadow of your wings.I cling to you;your strong right handholds me securely.
诗篇 63:6 8
我一生一世在你面前敬拜，在你名下举手。我渴想你，如旱地渴想水。我在床上记念你，夜间思想你；因你是我的帮助，我要在你翅膀的荫下欢呼。我紧紧跟随你；你的右手扶持着我。
Ephesians 3:18 19
May have power, together withall the Lord’s holy people,to grasp how wide and long andhigh and deep is the love of Christ,and to know this love that surpassesknowledge—that you may be filledto the measure of all the fullnessof God.
以弗所书 3:18 19
并且能够以和众圣徒一同明白基督的爱是多么长阔高深，并且知道这爱是超过人所能测度的，便叫神一切所充满的，充满了你们。
Romans 8:28
And we know that in all thingsGod works for the good of thosewho love him, who have been calledaccording to his purpose.
罗马书 8:28
我们晓得万事都互相效力，叫爱神的人得益处，就是按祂旨意被召的人。
GRATITUDE LOOKS BACK. HOPE LOOKS FORWARD. WONDER EXPECTS GOD.
感恩回顾过去。盼望展望未来。惊奇期待神的作为。
Yes, my soul, find rest in God;my hope comes from Him.
诗篇 62:5
我的心啊，你当默默无声，专等候神；我的盼望是从祂而来。
Psalm 62:8
Trust only in God every moment!Tell him all your troubles andpour out your heart longings to him;God is our refuge.
诗篇 62:8
你们要时时刻刻信任祂！在祂面前倾心吐意；神是我们的避难所。
Psalm 63:6 8
I lie awake thinking of you,meditating on you through the night.Because you are my helper,I sing for joy in the shadow of your wings.I cling to you;your strong right handholds me securely.
诗篇 63:6 8
我一生一世在你面前敬拜，在你名下举手。我渴想你，如旱地渴想水。我在床上记念你，夜间思想你；因你是我的帮助，我要在你翅膀的荫下欢呼。我紧紧跟随你；你的右手扶持着我。
Ephesians 3:18 19
May have power, together withall the Lord’s holy people,to grasp how wide and long andhigh and deep is the love of Christ,and to know this love that surpassesknowledge—that you may be filledto the measure of all the fullnessof God.
以弗所书 3:18 19
并且能够以和众圣徒一同明白基督的爱是多么长阔高深，并且知道这爱是超过人所能测度的，便叫神一切所充满的，充满了你们。
Romans 8:28
And we know that in all thingsGod works for the good of thosewho love him, who have been calledaccording to his purpose.
罗马书 8:28
我们晓得万事都互相效力，叫爱神的人得益处，就是按祂旨意被召的人。
GRATITUDE LOOKS BACK. HOPE LOOKS FORWARD. WONDER EXPECTS GOD.
感恩回顾过去。盼望展望未来。惊奇期待神的作为。
Creator
Pastor: Mike Koger
Contributor
Hillside United Methodist Church
3737 US 80
Phenix City AL 36870
United States
3737 US 80
Phenix City AL 36870
United States
Transcription
CODE VII — WONDER
Psalm 62:5–8
Norman Vincent Peale once used a humorous illustration about problems.
He asked an audience how many had problems — hands went up everywhere.
Then he asked how many would like to live somewhere with absolutely no problems — just as many hands went up.
Peale said such a place existed nearby: nobody there worried about money, work, or tomorrow.
Nobody had any problems whatsoever.
Then he revealed the place: THE CEMETERY.
Suddenly, getting rid of all our problems didn't sound quite so appealing.
Because problems are part of being alive. As long as we're living, we're going to encounter problems.
Maybe when we're running short of them, as Peale said, it's time to get on our knees and say: "God...don't You trust me anymore?"
The goal of life isn't to eliminate difficulty — it's to learn how to live fully in the middle of it.
And maybe God wants us to rediscover something many of us lost along the way. Something children understand naturally.
Something called... WONDER.
Monday morning, I woke up thinking this CODE series was finished.
Six messages. Done.
And then God surprised me.
God has a way of doing that for us… if we stop long enough to notice.
I started thinking about Monday mornings. How do we greet them?
“Oh no…another Monday”?
Same job. Same responsibilities. Same problems. Same routine.
Or could we wake up and say: “Lord…what do You have for me today?”
Same Monday. Same circumstances. But an entirely different way of seeing them.
When we really start living from God's CODE, something begins happening inside us. We become more aware. More grateful. More expectant. More alive.
And gradually our hearts begin opening to this extraordinary experience called WONDER.
Wonder is that mixture of surprise, admiration and amazement we experience when we encounter something beautiful, unexpected or beyond our understanding.
What would happen if we began living our ordinary lives with amazed admiration?
Not because everything was perfect, but because we began looking for God in everything.
Paul prays in Ephesians 3 that God's people would have the power to understand how wide, long, high and deep God's love really is.
God's love, goodness, and presence were already there.
We simply needed the ability to perceive it.
That's what gratitude does.
Gratitude isn't merely saying "thank you." Gratitude is noticing.
Psalm 63: "I lie awake thinking of you, meditating on you through the night... I cling to you; your strong right hand holds me securely."
Pause in life. Reflect on God's goodness and mercy.
When you practice gratitude, you stop letting life rush past unnoticed.
You start seeing what you used to take for granted: the person beside you, a sunrise, another morning. Ordinary things stop feeling quite so ordinary.
The other night I was talking face-to-face with someone in Melbourne, Australia — thousands of miles away, no delay, like they're in the next room.
We nowadays call that "normal."
Show that to somebody 150 years ago, and they'd call it a miracle. We call it “Tuesday.”
Maybe the world hasn't become less amazing.
Maybe we've just become harder to amaze.
Gratitude wakes us up. It says: "Look. Notice. Pay attention."
But Wonder needs something else: HOPE.
Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear.
If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.
Psalm 62:5 says, “Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from Him.”
Another translation captures the thought: “My expectation is from Him.”
Expectation means something is still possible. God is still working. God isn't finished.
Mark 9:23: (Jesus)“If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”
And this is where gratitude and hope come together:
WONDER IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN GRATITUDE FOR WHAT GOD HAS DONE MEETS EXPECTATION FOR WHAT GOD WILL DO.
Gratitude looks backward and says, “God has been faithful.”
Hope looks forward and says, “God isn't finished.”
And Wonder stands right in the middle and says:
“I can't wait to see what He does next.”
Sometimes living with hope reminds me of using GPS.
You put in the destination. It calculates the route. Everything looks good.
…And then… you miss the turn.
Imagine if your GPS responded like some of us respond to life:
“THAT'S IT! YOU MISSED THE TURN! YOUR ENTIRE TRIP IS RUINED!”
Thankfully, GPS doesn't do that. It simply says: “Recalculating.”
Maybe somebody needs to hear this today:
YOU HAVE MISTAKEN A RECALCULATION FOR A CANCELLATION.
Something didn't happen the way you expected. A relationship changed.
A door closed. A plan failed.
Life took a turn you never expected, and you thought: “It's over.”
But maybe God is saying: “No. We're recalculating.”
Sometimes our hopes have to adjust to the changing highway. And what God has in mind may be better than the best route we could have calculated ourselves.
You may not understand the road you're traveling right now.
But that doesn't mean God has abandoned the destination.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,
who have been called according to his purpose.”
Romans 8:28 doesn't say everything that happens is good.
It says that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
That's different.
The event itself may not be good.
But God can still work through it.
God can redeem it. Teach through it. Redirect through it.
Develop something inside us through it. The closed door becomes a redirection. The setback becomes preparation.
The wound becomes wisdom.
Sometimes… the mess becomes the message.
So instead of only asking, “Why is this happening to me?” we begin asking: “God…what can You do with this?
Where is the lesson? Where is the opportunity?
Where is the gift?”
That doesn't deny pain. It simply means pain doesn't get the final word.
Psalm 62:8 says: “Trust only in God every moment! Tell him all your troubles and pour out your heart-longings to him… Pause in his presence.”
Notice: it doesn't say pretend you don't have problems. Tell Him your troubles.
It doesn't say figure everything out. It says trust.
And then… pause.
Maybe that's where we've lost some of our wonder?
We don't pause anymore.
We're moving. Scrolling. Planning. Worrying. Reacting.
But wonder requires enough stillness to notice.
Maybe the world isn't short on miracles. Maybe we're short on awareness.
Maybe God hasn't stopped surprising us. Maybe we've stopped noticing.
So today, can we take life exactly as it is right now?
Not the life you wish you had. Not the life you thought you would have by now.
This life.
With its blessings and disappointments.
Victories and unanswered questions.
Open doors and closed doors. Joys and problems.
Can we place all of it into the loving hands of our Savior and allow Him to replace fear with trust, anxiety with expectation, disappointment with hope, routine with gratitude—and certainty with something even more beautiful: WONDER?
You don't have to understand everything God is doing to trust that God is doing something.
You don't have to know the entire route to take the next step.
And you don't have to have a problem-free life to have an abundant one.
So tomorrow morning, when your eyes open—before you reach for the phone, before you start rehearsing your problems—pause for a moment.
Breathe.
Recognize: “I'm alive. God is here. This day has never happened before.”
And instead of GROANING, “it's Monday again,” maybe we could say:
“God…it's Monday. I wonder what You have for me today.”
Maybe that's the final piece of the CODE:
Not having everything figured out, but trusting the One who does.
Living awake. Living grateful. Living hopeful. Living expectant.
Living with our eyes open to the possibility that God may be doing something extraordinary right in the middle of what looks ordinary.
And when the road changes, instead of immediately asking, "God, why is this happening to me?" maybe we learn to ask:
"God...what are You doing with this? Where are You taking me? How will You turn my mess into Your message?"
So before we leave this moment, let's do something with it - not just hear it.
If you're running on empty, tired of white-knuckling your way through disappointment, do one simple thing right now: open your hands.
Palms up, right where you're sitting.
Let that be your prayer – even before you say a word:
"I'm done gripping this so tightly. I'm placing it in Your hands."
And if you're ready, pray this with me:
"God, I don't have it all figured out, and I'm done pretending I do. I place my disappointments, my questions, my unfinished story into Your hands.
I surrender to YOU as a branch. Replace my fear with trust, my routine with gratitude, my certainty with wonder.
Starting today, I want to live awake to what You're doing. Amen."
If you meant that, tell someone this week.
Say it out loud: "I'm choosing to live in wonder."
A decision spoken out loud is harder to walk away from.
And then... we watch. We trust. We expect. And we live... IN WONDER.
Psalm 62:5–8
Norman Vincent Peale once used a humorous illustration about problems.
He asked an audience how many had problems — hands went up everywhere.
Then he asked how many would like to live somewhere with absolutely no problems — just as many hands went up.
Peale said such a place existed nearby: nobody there worried about money, work, or tomorrow.
Nobody had any problems whatsoever.
Then he revealed the place: THE CEMETERY.
Suddenly, getting rid of all our problems didn't sound quite so appealing.
Because problems are part of being alive. As long as we're living, we're going to encounter problems.
Maybe when we're running short of them, as Peale said, it's time to get on our knees and say: "God...don't You trust me anymore?"
The goal of life isn't to eliminate difficulty — it's to learn how to live fully in the middle of it.
And maybe God wants us to rediscover something many of us lost along the way. Something children understand naturally.
Something called... WONDER.
Monday morning, I woke up thinking this CODE series was finished.
Six messages. Done.
And then God surprised me.
God has a way of doing that for us… if we stop long enough to notice.
I started thinking about Monday mornings. How do we greet them?
“Oh no…another Monday”?
Same job. Same responsibilities. Same problems. Same routine.
Or could we wake up and say: “Lord…what do You have for me today?”
Same Monday. Same circumstances. But an entirely different way of seeing them.
When we really start living from God's CODE, something begins happening inside us. We become more aware. More grateful. More expectant. More alive.
And gradually our hearts begin opening to this extraordinary experience called WONDER.
Wonder is that mixture of surprise, admiration and amazement we experience when we encounter something beautiful, unexpected or beyond our understanding.
What would happen if we began living our ordinary lives with amazed admiration?
Not because everything was perfect, but because we began looking for God in everything.
Paul prays in Ephesians 3 that God's people would have the power to understand how wide, long, high and deep God's love really is.
God's love, goodness, and presence were already there.
We simply needed the ability to perceive it.
That's what gratitude does.
Gratitude isn't merely saying "thank you." Gratitude is noticing.
Psalm 63: "I lie awake thinking of you, meditating on you through the night... I cling to you; your strong right hand holds me securely."
Pause in life. Reflect on God's goodness and mercy.
When you practice gratitude, you stop letting life rush past unnoticed.
You start seeing what you used to take for granted: the person beside you, a sunrise, another morning. Ordinary things stop feeling quite so ordinary.
The other night I was talking face-to-face with someone in Melbourne, Australia — thousands of miles away, no delay, like they're in the next room.
We nowadays call that "normal."
Show that to somebody 150 years ago, and they'd call it a miracle. We call it “Tuesday.”
Maybe the world hasn't become less amazing.
Maybe we've just become harder to amaze.
Gratitude wakes us up. It says: "Look. Notice. Pay attention."
But Wonder needs something else: HOPE.
Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear.
If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.
Psalm 62:5 says, “Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from Him.”
Another translation captures the thought: “My expectation is from Him.”
Expectation means something is still possible. God is still working. God isn't finished.
Mark 9:23: (Jesus)“If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”
And this is where gratitude and hope come together:
WONDER IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN GRATITUDE FOR WHAT GOD HAS DONE MEETS EXPECTATION FOR WHAT GOD WILL DO.
Gratitude looks backward and says, “God has been faithful.”
Hope looks forward and says, “God isn't finished.”
And Wonder stands right in the middle and says:
“I can't wait to see what He does next.”
Sometimes living with hope reminds me of using GPS.
You put in the destination. It calculates the route. Everything looks good.
…And then… you miss the turn.
Imagine if your GPS responded like some of us respond to life:
“THAT'S IT! YOU MISSED THE TURN! YOUR ENTIRE TRIP IS RUINED!”
Thankfully, GPS doesn't do that. It simply says: “Recalculating.”
Maybe somebody needs to hear this today:
YOU HAVE MISTAKEN A RECALCULATION FOR A CANCELLATION.
Something didn't happen the way you expected. A relationship changed.
A door closed. A plan failed.
Life took a turn you never expected, and you thought: “It's over.”
But maybe God is saying: “No. We're recalculating.”
Sometimes our hopes have to adjust to the changing highway. And what God has in mind may be better than the best route we could have calculated ourselves.
You may not understand the road you're traveling right now.
But that doesn't mean God has abandoned the destination.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,
who have been called according to his purpose.”
Romans 8:28 doesn't say everything that happens is good.
It says that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
That's different.
The event itself may not be good.
But God can still work through it.
God can redeem it. Teach through it. Redirect through it.
Develop something inside us through it. The closed door becomes a redirection. The setback becomes preparation.
The wound becomes wisdom.
Sometimes… the mess becomes the message.
So instead of only asking, “Why is this happening to me?” we begin asking: “God…what can You do with this?
Where is the lesson? Where is the opportunity?
Where is the gift?”
That doesn't deny pain. It simply means pain doesn't get the final word.
Psalm 62:8 says: “Trust only in God every moment! Tell him all your troubles and pour out your heart-longings to him… Pause in his presence.”
Notice: it doesn't say pretend you don't have problems. Tell Him your troubles.
It doesn't say figure everything out. It says trust.
And then… pause.
Maybe that's where we've lost some of our wonder?
We don't pause anymore.
We're moving. Scrolling. Planning. Worrying. Reacting.
But wonder requires enough stillness to notice.
Maybe the world isn't short on miracles. Maybe we're short on awareness.
Maybe God hasn't stopped surprising us. Maybe we've stopped noticing.
So today, can we take life exactly as it is right now?
Not the life you wish you had. Not the life you thought you would have by now.
This life.
With its blessings and disappointments.
Victories and unanswered questions.
Open doors and closed doors. Joys and problems.
Can we place all of it into the loving hands of our Savior and allow Him to replace fear with trust, anxiety with expectation, disappointment with hope, routine with gratitude—and certainty with something even more beautiful: WONDER?
You don't have to understand everything God is doing to trust that God is doing something.
You don't have to know the entire route to take the next step.
And you don't have to have a problem-free life to have an abundant one.
So tomorrow morning, when your eyes open—before you reach for the phone, before you start rehearsing your problems—pause for a moment.
Breathe.
Recognize: “I'm alive. God is here. This day has never happened before.”
And instead of GROANING, “it's Monday again,” maybe we could say:
“God…it's Monday. I wonder what You have for me today.”
Maybe that's the final piece of the CODE:
Not having everything figured out, but trusting the One who does.
Living awake. Living grateful. Living hopeful. Living expectant.
Living with our eyes open to the possibility that God may be doing something extraordinary right in the middle of what looks ordinary.
And when the road changes, instead of immediately asking, "God, why is this happening to me?" maybe we learn to ask:
"God...what are You doing with this? Where are You taking me? How will You turn my mess into Your message?"
So before we leave this moment, let's do something with it - not just hear it.
If you're running on empty, tired of white-knuckling your way through disappointment, do one simple thing right now: open your hands.
Palms up, right where you're sitting.
Let that be your prayer – even before you say a word:
"I'm done gripping this so tightly. I'm placing it in Your hands."
And if you're ready, pray this with me:
"God, I don't have it all figured out, and I'm done pretending I do. I place my disappointments, my questions, my unfinished story into Your hands.
I surrender to YOU as a branch. Replace my fear with trust, my routine with gratitude, my certainty with wonder.
Starting today, I want to live awake to what You're doing. Amen."
If you meant that, tell someone this week.
Say it out loud: "I'm choosing to live in wonder."
A decision spoken out loud is harder to walk away from.
And then... we watch. We trust. We expect. And we live... IN WONDER.