Friends, I encourage you to have an attitude of “Wow!”
Find wonder in everything.
Wow leads to love.
St. Francis of Assisi was both the poorest and the richest man who lived on planet Earth. He owned everything and he owned nothing. He owned everything because he was like a child in front of God’s creation, who called the sun “Brother Sun” and the Moon “Sister Moon”. And he loved everyone. He especially loved the poorest of the poor.
Psychologists have proven through many tests that people who have a deep sense of wonder are altruistic. They think of others. They love other people.
What’s the connection between wonder and love? By realizing that you’re standing in front of something bigger than yourself, you know you’re no longer the center of the universe.
WOW Is Great for Relationships
When my mother was in her 70s and 80s, she would tell me the same old stories over and over again.
I cannot count the number of times Mom told me, “I grew up during the Japanese war.”
I could have responded by saying, “Oh, gosh, not again. Mom, you told me that story a hundred times…”
But I didn’t. Instead, I just asked questions I never asked before. (“Mom, did you see the Japanese soldiers already eat sushi with wasabi?”)
And I tried to learn something new from her story.
When you’re a person of Wow, you try to look at the same people in different ways.
The best marriages happen when husbands and wives still say Wow every time they see each other. Every day, you discover something new about each other.
That’s why I don’t need to have an affair with another woman. I’m already having an affair with my wife!
The silliest thing you can ever say is, “I know him already.” No, you don’t. Because the soul of each person is eternal. There is an entire universe to discover!
See Others as God’s Masterpiece
One day, a woman truck driver by the name of Teri Horton walked into a flea shop and saw a painting in the corner that no one wanted. She decided to buy it for a depressed friend. But when the storeowner told her it was worth $8, Teri joked that she didn’t love her friend that much.
She said, “I’ll buy it for $5.
And the owner said, “Yes.”
Later on, a friend told her, “That’s a painting by Jackson Pollock.”
She asked, “Who is that?”
She never heard of him before.
Teri learned that Jackson Pollock was a very famous painter.
Later, she learned that the painting that she bought for $5 was worth $50 million.
I believe that people around us are like that painting.
Because people don’t know their value. They think they’re worth $5—and that’s the reason they live the way they do. They destroy their life with bad habits, hang out with bad friends, and make bad choices.
You can help them. How? Look at them with your Wow Glasses. See the extraordinary in their ordinariness. See them as $50 million paintings.
When you see them, say “Wow, this is God’s work!”
Conclusion
We especially need to say Wow when we deal with our own family members.
One day, there was a 75-year-old man sitting on the bench with his 45-year-old highly educated son. Suddenly, a bird landed in front of them.
The father asked his son, “What is this?”
The son replied, “It’s a crow.”
After a few minutes, the father asked his son, “What is this?”
The son said, “Dad, I just told you, it’s a crow.”
After a little while, the old father again asked his son the third time, “What is this?”
This time, the son shouted at his father, “Why do you keep asking me the same question again and again? It’s a crow! It’s a crow! It’s a crow! Can’t you understand?”
The father kept quiet. A few moments later, he stood up and went to his room. When he returned, he handed to his son his very own old tattered diary—written many decades ago. Opening the page, he asked his son to read aloud.
Tears rolled down the son’s cheeks.
Because in the diary, the father read, “Today, my little son, three years old, was sitting with me on the bench, when a crow perched on the window. My son asked me 23 times what it was, and I replied to him 23 times that it was a crow. I hugged him each time he asked me the question for 23 times. I did not at all feel irritated, but I felt affection for my innocent child.”
Especially when parents get old, we sometimes forget to look at them with wonder.
My Final Word?
Your God is a God of Wow.
Because every time He looks at you, He says “Wow!”
Sometimes, we’re annoying. Sometimes, we’re frustrating. Many times, we fail Him. We fall. We falter. We sin.
But He still looks at us with Wow eyeglasses.
You may see yourself as a $5 painting.
God sees you as a $50 zillion painting.
Say Wow more often.
May your dreams come true,
Bo Sanchez
