Absolutely BREATHTAKING

Breathtaking: beautiful, awesome, amazing, astonishing, heart-stirring, magnificent, thrilling, awe inspiring

When it came to traveling, my husband and I lived with no regrets. In our younger years, when our budget could only afford weekend trips to nearby places and lakes, we thoroughly enjoyed time away with our children and we embraced God’s creation in the sweetest ways.

On our 25th wedding anniversary, we took on a new fervor for traveling to foreign and distant lands. One of our “must do’s” at every place we went was to visit cathedrals (in these photos are The Berlin Cathedral in Germany, Notre Dame in Paris and Cathedral of Milan, Italy). I continue to make that a priority today. BREATHTAKING are those cathedrals as they soar toward the heavens. My breath was always taken away at the architecture, and symbolism found in those buildings that presented us with an overwhelming experience of wonder and magnificence. We were captured by the those early master craftsmen and artists who, by hand, created such majestic monuments to God.

Those structures were built to reflect God’s all-surpassing splendor, but I wonder how we could possibly recapture in our hearts that BREATHTAKING feeling of God’s grandeur and be reminded again of His majesty. My blog, yesterday, was about being heavenly minded. We can’t be heavenly minded without acknowledging the ONE Who made the heavens and the earth.

Just think about the greatness of what God has created. All we have to do is to take one look at a starry night sky and think of God’s power as He spoke the universe into existence. I remember the snow-covered mountains of Alaska and the majestic Pacific Ocean that was teeming with millions of God's creatures and I imagine the power that holds this earth and all its wonders together. I remember the BREATHTAKING moment when I held my newborn babies and grandbabies in my arms and I thanked God for the miracle of life itself.

Man isn’t wrong to reach for the sky with those BREATHTAKING structures that are intended to point us to God. But our truest BREATHTAKING moments should be reserved for God Himself as we say to Him, “Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor” (1 Chronicles 29:11).

Lord, You do take our breath away with Your greatness. Thank You for reminding us of Your grandeur in Your world and in Your Word.