“Comfortably Numb.” The title of this famous rock song from the previous century has
always stuck with me, and is an apt descriptor of something that happens to a lot of us.
We become comfortably numb. Life comes at us and grinds our sharp ends down to blunt
objects. We become so used to everything – crime, violence, entertainment, sport,
neighbours, church, even God! – that nothing keeps our attention for very long. We
become bored, having lost our sense of wonder. That is why Jesus says in Matthew 18
that if we do not change and become like children once again, we will not enter the
Kingdom of God. Childlike faith, imagination, and a little purposeful naiveté are
desperately needed to learn how to look at life and others through the eyes of Jesus,
finding a little wonder again. Only then will joy return as well. Acts of kindness will
become our native way of being present in the world. Not only God Himself, but our
neighbours, will become more important than ourselves, treated with the respect they
deserve as Image Bearers of God. When people live with a renewed sense of wonder,
they are honed in on what gives true life, no longer comfortably numb, but wonderfully
alive once more.