Remembering That We’ve Forgotten: Recovering Awe in a World Gone Ordinary

I’ve recently begun reading Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton. It’s a dense read—so dense, in fact, that nearly every sentence sends me into deep reflection. One statement, in particular, stopped me in my tracks:

“All that we call common sense, rationality, and practicality and positivism, only has been that for certain dead levels of our life, we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit, art, and ecstasy only means—for one awful instant—we remember that we forget.”

At first glance, it sounds like a tongue-twister of abstraction. But the more I sat with it, the more it illuminated something essential about the human experience: we lose our sense of wonder simply because we’ve grown used to the world around us. The ordinary becomes invisible. The constant becomes dull. What once would have made us fall to our knees in amazement now barely makes us pause.

We forget that we have forgotten.

Chesterton is pointing to the tragedy of familiarity. In our quest for order and practicality, we’ve grown blind to the staggering miracle of existence itself. Rationalism, stripped of awe, leaves us with cold facts and no fire. But moments of art, of beauty, of spiritual ecstasy—these pierce the veil. They are brief, radiant flashes in which we remember how incredible this world truly is.

I think of my oldest son when he was three. At the time, we lived near a zoo in Florida. We visited so often that he started calling it “his zoo.” Every weekend, we’d go and explore. And every weekend, without fail, I’d watch his little face light up with wonder. The animals were like aliens or mythical creatures to him. A giraffe might as well have been a dragon. A flamingo, a brushstroke of living paint. Every turn brought excitement. Every cage, a new surprise. He was absolutely amazed by the world around him.

And in those moments, I saw it too. Through his eyes, I remembered. The wonder returned—if only for a moment. I would catch myself feeling small in the best possible way. The world felt magical again.

But the wonder never seemed to last.

That’s the sad epiphany: we were made to live in awe, but we’ve settled for analysis. The zoo became routine. The sky became background. Trees became scenery. Even the people we love can fade into the blur of our expectations. It’s the human condition—we overlook the miracles because they’re constant. And in losing our wonder of creation, we begin to lose our wonder of the Creator.

This isn’t just sentimentality—it’s theology. The psalmist wrote, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). All of creation is preaching, constantly and loudly. But our hearts have grown deaf.

We live on a floating sphere, spinning in perfect balance around a ball of fire that warms our skin, rising and setting like clockwork. A moon pulls on our oceans and lights our nights. A million invisible systems are holding us together—gravity, blood, breath, memory. We exist in a divine paradox: we’re tiny and beloved. Mortal, yet eternal. We should be marveling.

And yet—we forget.

We forget to be amazed. We forget to give thanks. We forget to look around and say, “This is all too wonderful for me.”

But every once in a while—through a child’s eyes, a piece of music, a mountain view, or a quiet moment in prayer—we remember that we’ve forgotten. And we come alive again.

Maybe that’s part of why Jesus said, “Unless you become like little children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 18:3). Children are naturally in awe. They don’t hide it. They don’t analyze it. They just wonder.

So today, I’m asking God to help me wonder again. To be less numb. To remember. Because when we recover our sense of wonder, we don’t just see the world differently—we see God differently. And that changes everything.