Faith | A ‘marvelous wonder’ is the change God can make in our heart
On the bitter cold, snowy afternoon of Dec. 24, 1993, I stood in the cobblestone lane at Auschwitz, Poland. Trying to keep my back to the wind I had to turn partly away from the wrought-iron sign that reads in German: Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Brings Freedom).
Half facing and half turned away I had the distinct realization that I might symbolically be avoiding the horrible truth of that place. It wasn’t intentional, I was there to see it and to experience all of it. While the experience was humbling and horrifying, that cold day also left me with something else, something positive.
A few years later I came across a phrase in Isaiah. The verse reads in part: “Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder ... .”(Isaiah 29:14). What stood out to me was “a marvelous work and a wonder.”
I thought about that phrase a lot and came to think it referred to God’s work in the Eastern European countries and the toppling of communism, and the free expansion of Christianity. But that wasn’t my answer. I wondered later if it was the shrinking of our planet through communication, travel and the internet—also not it.
And so, bored with my quest, I left it.
Then about 10 years passed. In that time, I traveled, saw the world and experienced the highs and lows of life. I suffered through addictions and eventually found recovery through the “12 and 12” program offered by Alcoholics Anonymous. For the first time in my life I built a relationship with God.
As my life improved, God showed me others he had helped. I began to see that the changes he had made in their lives were often remarkable, miraculous, even marvelous and wonderful.
Now, every Tuesday night, I sit in a small room with a small group of men at our local prison. They have all been convicted of serious crimes.
None of them deny their convictions or dispute their sentences. Yet, every week I find them to be refreshingly honest, insightful, wise and surprisingly full of God’s love. Like Paul, they have been “persuaded” that Jesus is their only hope. (Romans 8:38) Even though they are convicts, the changes God has wrought in their lives is truly a “marvelous work and a wonder” to me.
I have had the fortune of witnessing some of this earth’s true wonders. I stood in that gate at Auschwitz. I have also stood over Kilauea in Hawaii and looked down into the fiery depths of the volcano. I have seen the retina-burning blue of the Caribbean from North, South and Central America.
I have sat upon a horse and felt the thundering of a herd of a thousand American bison. I have stood in the shadow of iconic St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna and watched the sun come up over Monument Valley in Arizona. I have wandered the lonely expanse of Wyoming’s Wind River Range, as well as the busy, sleepless streets of New York City.
Yet in all this, the most marvelous and wonder-filled things I have seen are the changes God has made in my life and the lives of others. The “marvelous work and a wonder” foretold by Isaiah is not a movement, or a cause or an event. It is simply the love God has coming into the human heart and transforming it.
That cold day in Poland so long ago did not transform me, but I am surprised by how often I think about it, and the lesson instilled there. And that is: If we want to be surprised in life, we simply need to look at what God does in the lives of those around us. We might just see a marvelous work and a wonder.
Guest Spiritual Life writer Christopher Campbell is a Sunday School teacher, Addiction Recovery missionary and member of the Pasco North Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Questions and comments should be directed to editor Lucy Luginbill in care of the Tri-City Herald newsroom, 4253 W. 24th Ave., Kennewick, WA 99338. Or email lluginbill@tricityherald.com.
