I sing by myself quite often, in the car, in the shower and sometimes even on my bicycle. Often, a word or a thought will remind me of a song which in turn will remind me of another song and so on. A couple of days ago in the shower I began to sing, “Isn’t He Wonderful?” That in turn led to, “Wonderful, Wonderful, Jesus Is Me” and then “His Name Is Wonderful.” I began to contemplate just how wonderful the Lord has been to me. I began to think about the wonder and glory of God. The word wonderful appears in 25 different verses in the NIV and with only a couple of exceptions the word is used to describe the acts or deeds of God. In Isaiah 9:6 wonderful is a title or name ascribed to Jesus. Some translations use it as an adjective combined with Counselor, but the NKJV separates Wonderful and Counselor with a comma. Whether or not He is Wonderful or the Wonderful Counselor, it is a very apt description of not only what He does, but of who He is. Meditate for a moment on these words from Isaiah 25:1, *“I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago.”* The word wonderful itself describes a wonder, a miracle, a marvelous thing, and astounding thing which causes a feeling or attitude of intense amazement. How does the understanding that God is wonderful impact us in our everyday life? We know that He is wonderful because the Scripture tells us that it is so and also because we have experienced His wonderful kindness, grace and mercy, but how often do we take the time to just bask in wonder and amazement in the presence of our God? In ministry specifically, but also in life generally if we are not deliberate in our worship and devotion it is highly probable that the pressures and demands of life will crowd out our time of simply sitting in the presence of Jesus and being in awe of who he is and how wonderful is his love toward us. Spending time in the presence of our Wonderful Savior should be something quite different than our study, sermon or lesson preparation or even times of prayer. I would never minimize or demean any of those activities, but they are not a substitute for simply spending time in worship and adoration. Others may not understand your apparent inactivity and even mischaracterize it as being lazy or unconcerned that there are others who are diligently working. As you undoubtedly recall, this was Martha’s complaint against Mary. Martha perceived that Mary was neglecting her responsibilities and this caused great anxiety for Martha, but Jesus proclaimed that Mary had chosen “what is better.” Martha was not concerned about frivolous or impractical things, but she did not recognize the priority of spending time with Jesus, simply sitting in adoration at his feet. Have you spent time recently delighting yourself in the presence of the Lord, putting him before any other cares or concerns? I will leave you with the words to a song made popular by George Beverly Shea. The chorus says, *“O, the wonder of it all! The wonder of it all! Just to think that God loves me. O, the wonder of it all! The wonder of it all! Just to think that God loves me."*