Of all the gifts my father gave me, the best and least convenient was the gift of wonder. A sense of awe elevates us to higher ground and opens our eyes to broad horizons; it also stops us in our tracks in what Plotinus called “the delicious trouble of wonderment.”[1] If you are on a schedule, I am the wrong person to take to a museum, or on a hike, or to the zoo. I cannot help but stop and wonder at things. My father is to blame: He was always pausing on walks to watch a caterpillar amble across a sidewalk, or to listen to the song of a bird, or to watch a cloud taking shape in the sky. Waking up at 3:00 a.m. is hard for a child, especially when you have to drive out to a field and stand in the cold waiting for a meteor shower. But the rewards never disappointed. My dad was a curator of nature’s beauty, and my brother and I soon learned to seek and find her hidden mysteries for ourselves.

Wonder is a gift, offered to our children as a cultivated habit.

James K. A. Smith, author of You Are What You Love, describes how habits are made when our desires change. “Over time, rituals and practices—often in tandem with aesthetic phenomena like pictures and stories—mold and shape our precognitive disposition to the world by training our desires.”[2] Training our children to desire beauty, truth, and goodness starts by fostering in them a disposition for wonder. Today, having become a parent, I find myself considering more and more how to encourage a sense of amazement in my own children the way my father did for me, because I recognize the fruit that gift bore. As I reflect, three outcomes of wonder present themselves: attentiveness to the world, humility, and fulfillment.

            First, wonder makes children pause, open their eyes, and observe the world around them. This seemingly simple ability cannot be overstated in the current moment. In the West, distraction has become a hallmark of modern culture. Screens are everywhere, and the claws of social media fight fiercely for attention. Nowadays most children between the ages of 13 to 17 report using social media almost constantly.[3] These platforms are designed to capture and sell information about users, and with billions of daily users, there is a preponderance of attention to grab at.[4]Thomas Merton lamented a society “whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, to strain every human desire to the limit and to create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible, in order to cater to them with the products of our factories and printing presses and movie studios and all the rest.”[5] The effect of this constant distraction on young minds has gained the attention of the U.S. surgeon general, not just for how it stops children from learning well, but for its cognitive ramifications. His recent report shows how frequent social media use results in negative changes to the developing brain of a child, especially in the amygdala.[6] It also changes the prefrontal cortex in a way that increases a child’s sensitivity to the extremely public rewards and punishments of their peers on social media.[7] Yet our children, crafted in the image of God, are not meant to be in constant distraction. Rather, they are meant to observe the world as He does; to behold it and say, “It is good.”

The act of slowing down to wonder at God’s creation fosters learning and, more importantly, creativity.

Consider these lovely words by Robert Capon: “Man’s real work is to look at the things of the world and to love them for what they are. That is, after all, what God does, and man was not made in God’s image for nothing. … How much curious and loving attention was expended by the first man who looked hard enough at the insides of trees, the entrails of cats, the hind ends of horses and the juice of pine trees to realize he could turn them all into the first fiddle. No doubt his wife urged him to get up and do something useful.”[8] A creative child is a child who has learned to slow down, pay attention, and let himself stand in amazement. Who knows what incredible ideas will come out of your child’s creative mind when it is allowed to wonder!

            A second outcome of wonder is humility. There is an ancient story told of the aspen tree, which is the only deciduous tree that grows in the high country of my home state, Colorado. The story goes that the aspen tree is the most humble tree, which is why its delicate leaves never stop quivering. Yet it is the most resilient tree—mysteriously able to flourish in the harshness of the Rocky Mountains where only pine trees grow. Humility proffers strength. And wonder opens the door to humility. We are small creatures in a universe that John Calvin called, “a dazzling theater of God’s glory.” To behold the beauty of creation and stand in awe of its Creator has a humbling effect. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Instilling humility in our children gives them the grounding they need to stand firm when buffeted by life’s storms. It also opens them to mystery, which is a hard-to-navigate and ubiquitous part of the human experience. As G. K. Chesterton quipped, “God comes not to answer riddles, but propound them.”[9] The earlier we understand this, the better we will be at navigating unknowns. In times of struggle, it’s a Person we are after, not an answer, and wonder helps us to live in the tension of that.             Finally, wonder brings joy because it leads to the Source of all joy.

When our children slow down enough to observe the beauty of God’s world, it leads them to God Himself.

Philosopher John-Mark Miravalle explains: “Beauty draws a person toward immaterial truth and goodness. … Beauty makes us long for higher things, which motivates us to pursue higher things, which leads to our ultimate fulfilment.”[10] Wonder teaches our children that there is more to reality than the material. Fulfillment never comes from bingeing our favorite streaming service or doom-scrolling across the wastelands of social media, any more than eating an entire bag of candy makes us feel good about ourselves. We might feel full, yet we are anything but fulfilled. We are higher beings, and so naturally fulfillment comes from higher things. In his book Recapturing the Wonder, Mike Cosper explores how our desires are not too big but too small. Cosper explains, “Too often, we not only settle for less, but we devote ourselves to the serious pursuit of less. It’s as if someone discovered a love of food and then devoted themselves to the study of Arby’s. What we desire is so much more than mere physical satisfaction. It comes only when we learn to live a life of attentive and loving presence.”[11] A sense of wonder draws us toward that loving presence, but we must be paying attention to hone that desire. True joy comes when our pursuit of beauty, goodness, and truth leads us to the Source of those things—to the God who is the ultimate form of them. There is no better thing our children can be drawn to. As Plato wrote, “The world is the fairest of creations and he is the best of causes.”[12]

            These things clicked for me in a new way recently when I had a chance-meeting with the owner of Denver’s oldest and most successful audio store. The owner and I were discussing the beauty of music and how important it is to hear it as it was meant to be heard. He gestured to the glass of wine he was holding, which was a very fine wine. He said, “There’s a difference between drinking and tasting. And there’s a difference between hearing and listening.” Wonder is wonderful because it teaches children to stop drinking and start tasting, to slow down and listen to the beautiful music of the world. Wonder is a protector, shielding our children’s teachability and creativity. It is a preserver, proffering strength that comes with a humble heart. And it is a guide—it leads to higher climes, to the Source, to God Himself.

Tips for Parents and Teachers

How can we foster curiosity and wonder in our children practically? Here are a few tips to get started:

1. Be full of wonder yourself. We cannot give away what we don’t have. Most young people learn habits by first observing and then doing. What makes you full of wonder? Is there a way to incorporate the pursuit of this in a rhythmic way? Invite your children to take part in this habit.

2. Observe nature together. There is great power in the beauty of creation. Nature is the handiwork of God, and it declares the attributes of Him loudly. His power is reflected in the thundering waterfall, His gentleness in the calm pools, His mirth in the laughing song of a sparrow, His mystery in the distant light of a star. Take time to go out into nature with your children and discuss together what you observe.

3. Go slowly. In a world that is always rushing, we have no time for wonder and awe. Slow down and invite your children to do the same. Instead of being distracted by screens and buzzing phones, allow yourselves to be distracted by a wandering beetle, a gentle breeze, or simply pause and close your eyes and listen to the world around you.

May God bless you and your children as you enjoy the Gift of Wonder!

References

[1] Plotinus, The Enneads of Plotinus: Ennead I.6: On Beauty, trans. Andrew Smith (Parmenides Publishing, 2016).

[2] James K. A. Smith, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2016), 59.

[3] Ninety-five percent of youth ages 13 to 17 report using a social media platform, with more than a third saying they use social media “almost constantly.” E. Vogels et al. “Teens, Social Media and Technology 2022.” Pew Research Center, August 10, 2022. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens‑social‑media‑and‑technology‑2022/.

[4] At the time of writing this article, Facebook alone has three billion monthly active users and two billion daily active users. For a breakdown of how many users other popular platforms have, visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_social_platforms

[5] Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain: Fiftieth-Anniversary Edition (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1998), 48.

[6] The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory. “Social Media and Youth Mental Health the U.S. surgeon general’s advisory 2023.” Accessed March 6, 2026. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/sg-youth-mental-health-social-media-advisory.pdf.

[7] M. T. Maza et al. “Association of Habitual Checking Behaviors on Social Media With Longitudinal Functional Brain Development.” JAMA Pediatrics, January 3, 2023: 177(2), 160–167. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2022.4924.

[8] Robert Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection (New York Modern Library, 2002), 112.

[9] G. K. Chesterton, Introduction to The Book of Job (Cecil Palmer & Hayward, 1916).

[10] John-Mark Miravalle, Beauty: What It Is and Why It Matters (Sophia Institute Press, 2019), 13.

[11] Mike Cosper, Recapturing the Wonder: Transcendent Faith in a Disenchanted World (IVP Books, an imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2017), 128-129.

[12] Plato, Timaeus.