Awakened to Wonder

For the past couple of months, I’ve been reading Bill Bryson’s book, A Short History of Nearly Everything. I didn’t know what to expect when I started reading it, but it covers a wide range of scientific topics: astronomy, geology, dinosaurs and fossils, the periodic table, physics (relativity, the atom, quantum mechanics), genetics, the origin of life, and more. I’m reading the original version; I just noticed that an updated edition just came out.

In every topic Bryson covers, it goes something like this: the world is amazing. We understand only a small part of it, and what we do understand is so unbelievable that it almost defies explanation. All of this shouldn’t exist and shouldn’t be so amazing, but it does exist and it boggles the mind.

For example, here’s what I read last night:

The bottom line is that life is amazing and gratifying, perhaps even miraculous… To be sure, many of the details of life’s beginnings remain pretty imponderable.

And so it goes with almost every topic. Bryson stands amazed at it all: that you exist at all, that space is so vast and atoms are so small; that the earth is so well suited to life; that our cells are so unbelievably complex; that despite our scientific advances, we still understand so little.

Near the end, he expresses amazement not only that all of this exists, but that we may be the only creatures capable of understanding it enough to be amazed by all of it.

Bryson does not write this book as a believer. Yet, as I read it, I find it to be one of the most worshipful books I have ever read. The point of the book is simple: this world is amazing, impossibly amazing. What we experience every day defies explanation. As I read this book, I often feel myself thinking of the words of the psalmist:

O LORD, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom have you made them all…
(Psalm 104:24)

If we opened our eyes, we would be filled with wonder and praise. Rather than thinking that science explains everything, science opens our eyes to how much we do not understand.

I do not get through many pages each night before I fall asleep, but I have found it to be a very enjoyable way to end my day. So often, I am only aware of the ordinariness of life, the day-by-day existence in a difficult and sometimes grey world. This book, written by an unbeliever, has become a way for me to awaken to the wonder around me and to praise the Creator behind everything he has made. The world truly is amazing. God has given us so much.

If you want a book that will awaken your wonder at the beauty of what God has created, I highly recommend this book. Even if you’re not into science, and even if you don't agree with everything he writes, it will introduce you to some fascinating topics that will entertain and amaze you. I think it will lead you into worship too.