Mark Batterson - Carpe Wonder (12/15/2025)
Mark Batterson draws from John Muir's storm-climbing adventure and God's command to Abraham in Genesis 15:5 to go outside, look up, and count the stars, urging us to seize wonder in creation as a way to confront the Creator, shift focus from circumstances to God's vast promises, and live lives full of awe rather than safe spectatorship.
John Muir's Storm Adventure
In December of 1874, John M was staying at a cabin nestled in the Sierra Nevada mountains when a winter storm whipped through the valley. In situations like that, most people seek shelter; John M was not wired that way. His desire was to seek adventure, so John M braved the storm, located the tallest Douglas fir tree he could find, climbed his way all the way to the top, and held on for dear life as the tree swayed in all directions about 20 degrees in that storm. My question is, why? Why in the world? Why would you climb a tree during a winter storm? On such occasions, John Muir said:
"Nature has something rare to show us. The danger to life and limb is no greater than one would experience crouching beneath a roof." Some would say that John Muir was tempting death, but that is how John Muir came to life. He feasted his senses on the sights, the sounds, the smells of earth, wind, and snow. Eugene Peterson referenced this moment, John M climbing to the top of a Douglas fir tree, as the epitome of Christian spirituality.
"Anybody want to second that motion? All in favor say, 'Aye.' Opposed? No? The motion carries." I have never done that in a sermon; I do not know where that came from. Eugene Peterson said that Muir climbing to the top of that tree was a standing rebuke against becoming a mere spectator to life, preferring creature comfort to creator confrontation.
Are you a mere spectator to life? Do you prefer creature comfort, or are you braving the storm? Are you climbing trees like there is no tomorrow? Are you living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death, or are you living your life in a way that is worth telling stories about? You realize what just happened, right? I just told you about something that someone did 150 years ago. Why? Because this is someone who lived their life in a way that was worth telling stories about. Let us be honest: a lot of people believe the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Come on! What if you had one shot, one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment? Would you capture it, or would you let it slip?
"Yo! Palms are sweaty; knees weak, arms are heavy." I am going to stop right there. You have got to brave the storm; you have got to climb the tree; you have got to Carpe Wonder. And that is the title of the message. Welcome to National Community Church as we wrap our series "A Million Little Miracles."
God's Promise to Abraham
You can meet me in a tent in ancient Israel, Genesis. It is a cloudless night when the stars shine bright. Abraham is warming himself by the light of the fire, shadows dancing off the side of the tent. And that is when Abraham has a vision. That is when God takes Abraham on a two-foot field trip.
Genesis 15:5: "Then the Lord took Abram outside the tent and said, 'Look up! Look up into the sky and count the stars. Count the stars if you can. That is how many descendants you will have!'" Let us be honest: that seems awfully unlikely at the time. Yeah, 100-year-old men do not get 90-year-old women pregnant. Not going to happen, but God... and look at us! Father Abraham had many sons; many sons had Father Abraham, and I am one of them, and so are you! So let us just praise the Lord! Right arm! Three simple thoughts this weekend: Go outside, look up, count the stars.
Ready or not, here we go!
Personal Heroes and Holy Curiosity
I have four pictures that hang in my office; it is my personal Mount Rushmore. All four of these people died long before I was born, but they hold a unique place in my life. They left their fingerprints on my soul. You can see Albert Einstein kind of front and center. It was an 878-page biography; page 755 changed my life. He said, "Never lose a holy curiosity." It was the juxtaposition of those two words, holy and curiosity, that captured my attention. I am a pretty average guy; just want to put that out there. But if I have a superpower, it is curiosity. I am interested in everything. I think it was this book; it was this moment, and so "A Million Little Miracles." I wrote that book in three months. No, I have been writing that book for 30 years! May God cultivate a holy curiosity in us!
Now, Teddy Roosevelt riding a moose—can you see it? Who does that? Well, the same guy who scaled the Matterhorn, did African safaris, navigated the Amazon River, and went skinny-dipping in the Potomac River as President. George Washington Carver was the first former slave to become a student and then a professor at Iowa State—one of the greatest chemists and agronomists the world has ever known. He single-handedly saved the economy of the South by producing crop rotation. You know this! He came up with 300 uses of the peanut. The short answer is Job 12:7–8. George Washington Carver would get up at 4:00 a.m. and take prayer walks through the woods, and Job 12:7–8 was his life verse. It says: "Ask the animals, and they will teach you; or the birds of the sky, and they will tell you; speak to the earth, and it will teach you; let the fish in the sea inform you."
Carver said something so profound. It is in the book; you will find it in your message notes on the NCC app. He said, "Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough." When I talk to the little flower or the little peanut, they will give up their secrets. Then Carver extrapolated: "When I silently commune with people, they give up their secrets also, if you love them enough." The fourth and final picture is John Muir.
Now, fun fact: John Muir memorized the entire New Testament. He believed in baptism by water, baptism by fire, but he also believed in baptism by nature. "The mountains are calling," said Muir, "and I must go." His mission was saving the soul from total surrender to materialism. All of that to say this: Go outside—not right now, but go outside.
Go Outside: Reconnect with Nature
Question: When have you felt most alive? When have you been most overwhelmed with childlike wonder? When and where have you felt closest to God? Now, I hope a gathering like this—the supernatural synergy we experience when we worship together—is on that short list. But do you know the first house of God? That is what Bethel means. That is what Jacob experienced in an open cathedral. I would argue that if we lose touch with nature, we lose touch with Nature's God. I think we have devalued natural theology, and the problem with that is this: we create this false dichotomy between sacred and secular. No, all truth is God's truth!
Theology is a branch of theology. All things were created by Him and for Him, and in Him, all things hold together. And what does Romans 1:20 say? It says that God has revealed His invisible nature, His divine qualities, and His eternal power through what He has made. Many years ago, I hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. Four days on the trail, we were surrounded by nothing but nature. The first night we were in camp, we were a little confused because there was some mechanical noise we heard. You are not going to believe this: someone brought an inflatable mattress and an air compressor! Who would do that? You are looking at him.
Did I feel a little less manly than the other guys in the group? Yes. Did I regret it? Not for a single second of sleep. Let me go on record: I am grateful for the roof over my head. I love air conditioning; amen? Indoor plumbing? Yeah! High-speed internet? Come on! Amen to all of those things! But if we are not careful, we start to live these very insulated lives. What does that have to do with Abraham? Well, as long as Abraham was inside his tent, he was staring at an eight-foot ceiling—a man-made ceiling. God takes him on a two-foot field trip.
Well, what difference does that make? All the difference in the world! Because the second he stepped outside, the sky is the limit! I think the question is: Are there any eight-foot limits or ceilings you put on God? I think there is something about going outside that is recalibrating. Does anybody else just feel like sometimes you need to reset your brain? I mean, the news cycles are fast and furious; I cannot keep up with trending hashtags. I think social media is like the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I just do not think we were designed to know everything about everyone all the time. I just do not think the human spirit has that capacity.
What can happen is that we start existing in this little tent; we start putting eight-foot ceilings on God. But I think sometimes we have got to go outside. You know, there is a curious command in the Sermon on the Mount. Okay, so it is not as widely known as the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto yourself." It is not as popular as the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name." It is not as dramatic as the six antitheses: "Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, bless those who curse you, turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, give the shirt off your back." And it is not as quoted as the Beatitudes. But it is no less important.
What am I talking about? Consider the lilies! Jesus said that! In other words, maybe you ought to go outside, get back in touch with nature, and you might get in touch with Nature's God. Can I just get scientific for a second? Because I think it is worth it: There is something in environmental psychology called the three-day effect. Cognitive neuroscientist David Strayer has conducted studies on this, and before a three-day Outward Bound adventure, he would administer a Remote Associates test, which is a test of creativity, to participants. Then he would administer that test afterwards.
And do you want to have a little fun today? Let us play! I will give you three words, and you need the one word that goes with all three: cream, skate, water. Yeah, you are good! Ice cream, ice skate, ice water! Okay, let us up the level: age, mile, and sand. Stone! Someone got it: Stone Age, Milestone, Sandstone! Okay, this one is big league right here: manners, round, and tennis. Table! Come on, give yourselves a hand today! And you did it in church!
Before a three-day Outward Bound retreat, what David Strayer found was that being off the grid for three days in nature increased creativity by 50%. I think what I am saying is this is not optional. If we are serious about stewarding our God-given creativity, change of pace plus change of place equals change of perspective! So, I think just thinking about, "Hey, maybe I need to get outside a little bit more."
Let us keep going! Where did the Transfiguration happen? It is a very easy one. We read stories like this, but because we do not experience the change in PSI or the change in elevation, because we are not out of breath from having hiked said mountain, we read right over it. But there is a geography to spirituality, and there is a reason why Jesus climbed mountains, walked beaches, sailed the Sea of Galilee, and when He was baptized and felt this calling into ministry, what did He do? He did not go to seminary—no, He did not go to seminary. He withdrew to the wilderness for 40 days.
And why would Scripture explicitly say He was with the wild animals? I do not know, but there is something about that 40-day season, about going outside, that prepared Him for what His Father had called Him to. Fun fact: wild animals have larger brains than their domesticated counterparts! The brains of wild boars are 35% larger than domesticated pigs. The brains of house cats are 30% smaller than feral cats. Dogs' brains are 10,000 times larger than cats' brains. Now that one was just made up; I am just making sure that you are listening. Why? Because domesticated animals do not have to hunt for food. It is use it or lose it.
Go outside! Are you picking up what I am throwing down? Yes?
Look Up: Shift Your Perspective
Okay, then let us switch gears! God takes Abraham on a two-foot field trip. "Go outside!" Then God says, "Look up!" Just for effect, give me what I call the Rapture pose. I like taking Rapture pictures where everybody looks up. Look up! Look up! Look up! "For your redemption draweth nigh!"
Right? God tells Abraham, "Look up." It was a cold winter night—one of those kinds of nights where you can see your breath, and it was a cloudless night where the stars shine just a little bit brighter. I was four years old, and our family lived in Minneapolis. We went out to this tree farm because you have got to cut down the tree like Clark Griswold to do it right. So we are hunting for the perfect tree; my grandfather is holding me in his arms, and we find it—the light shining, the angel chorus like, "That is the tree!" We found our Douglas fir tree!
And my grandfather climbed it all the way to the top. I am kidding—John Muir did that! But we found that tree, we cut it down, and we are going back to the car. I will never forget this moment: I cannot read Psalm 19:1 without hearing my grandfather's voice: "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands." And I am right back in my grandfather's arms—it is like a time warp right there. There is something about looking up!
God is shifting His perspective. Come on, let us change our focus! Why? Because focus determines reality. Abram looks up, and it is a game-changer. I think the question is, why? Why is this significant? Well, again, as long as Abraham was inside the tent staring at an eight-foot ceiling, the second he walked outside, the sky is the limit! I think looking up is very similar to what the prophet Isaiah said: "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts."
God likens the difference between our thoughts and His thoughts to the expanse of space. I did a longer version in week one; here is the short version: Astrophysicists estimate that the co-moving distance from one side of the universe to the other is 93 billion light-years, which is a distance that really is inconceivable. And God says that is about the difference between your thoughts and my thoughts.
Here is a thought: Your best thought on your best day is still 93 billion light-years short of how good and how great God is! Every one of us walked in underestimating God by 93 billion light-years. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine according to His power that is at work within us. My God is so big, so strong, and so mighty—there is nothing my God cannot do!
It must be like Sing-along Sunday! Let me just take some ceilings off. But let me frame it in biology. There are windows of opportunity that are called critical periods. If it does not happen in that critical period, whatever it is—brain development, body development—basically, biology says it is not going to happen.
John 9 is one of my favorite miracles: Jesus heals the man born blind. The born blind is key because it means that there were no synaptic connections between the optic nerve and the visual cortex in the brain. So Jesus is not healing an astigmatism; this is not some kind of correction to 20/20 vision. No! This is synaptogenesis! Jesus is literally installing a synaptic pathway and allowing this man to see!
What I am getting at is this: There is no way this man is ever going to see... but God! God shows up and shows off and says, "Watch this! I am going to reopen the window of opportunity!" I already said it: 100-year-old men do not get 90-year-old women pregnant. It is not going to happen—no way! But God! When you have severe asthma for 40 years, it is your earliest memory; you cannot imagine anything else—there is no way! But God!
If God can resurrect a man four days dead, what cannot He do? How big is your God? Is He bigger than your biggest problem? Bigger than your biggest mistake? Bigger than your biggest dream? Man, I love this Lewis Carroll classic, "Through the Looking Glass." Alice says, "One cannot believe in impossible things," to which the White Queen replies, "I dare say you have not had much practice. When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Imagine that kind of faith! God, give us that kind of faith! Lord, let this be that kind of church. God, we pray for miracles, not just for us, but for Your glory. We pray for testimonies that no one else can explain! God, we pray that the God of miracles would show up and show off so we can give You glory all over again! In Jesus' name, amen!
So, God takes him outside the tent, says, "Look up! Look up!" Why? Because your focus determines your reality. Now here is the reality: Abraham got a little passive-aggressive with God. We would never do this, right? But God has blessed him in so many ways. However, Abraham says, "But I am childless!" So he is focused on one thing that God has not done, and that is human nature!
So, God, it is not your fault, but it is, but it is not, but it is! And so we even shift blame towards God. Abraham is inside this tent; he is throwing a pity party. I want to be really sensitive; I mean, come on—25 years of frustration! 25 years of disappointment—he is probably allowed a pity party, right? Right? I mean, can we just not ignore feelings that are real? Like God is not intimidated by this. He is not intimidated by what you really think and what you really feel. He is still seated on His throne, and He can still deliver on His promises.
But Abraham... this is a hard moment, and God says, "Well, here is what we have got to do: We have got to shift your focus back to the promises of God." Doubt is putting our circumstances between us and God; it is allowing our circumstances to dictate how we think, how we feel. Do not let fear dictate your decisions! Faith is putting God between us and our circumstances. It does not mean we do not confront the brutal facts.
Abraham, in Romans 4, says he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead. You have got to confront the brutal facts before the miracle happens. Because then, when God actually does it, "No way!" "Yes way!" But God! I wonder how many of us today are a little more focused on our circumstances than on the promises of God!
Focus Determines Reality: The Elephant Man
Can I tell you about one of my heroes, a man named Joseph Merrick, better known as The Elephant Man? Born in 1862, very few people had more deformities and disabilities than Joseph Merrick. In 19th-century England, there was a perverse yet popular form of entertainment called human novelty exhibitions. Joseph Merrick was a human freak show. People would pay a shilling, then they would shriek and scream when they saw him, almost like an animal in a cage. He was dehumanized.
Then one day, a surgeon, Dr. Frederick Treves, got curious: "Who is this really?" He admitted him to the hospital, began to care for him, but then the same thing happened. An orderly walked into Joseph's room, opened the door, saw him, screamed, dropped the tray of food, and ran out of the room. Dr. Treves knew he needed to do something, so he recruited another orderly to walk into the room, make eye contact, smile, and reach out her hand to shake his.
This is what happened: Dr. Treves said, "The effect upon Joseph Merrick was not quite what I expected. As he let go of her hand, he put his head in his hands and sobbed until I thought he would never stop." But they were tears of joy to God! He said it was the first woman who had ever smiled at him—who had ever shaken his hand!
Dr. Treves knew: "No, this is a human soul." He started sneaking him into private boxes of London theaters so he could enjoy the opera or a play. He gave him books and discovered that he loved knowledge and loved to learn. He took him on two-foot field trips to the countryside, and he loved chasing rabbits, listening to songbirds and picking wildflowers. Joseph Merrick died when he was 27 years old, but before he died, there was a common refrain he said all the time: "I am happy every hour of the day."
And I look at the circumstances and say, "How can someone who was dehumanized, who was traumatized, who was treated the way he was—screamed at, shrieked at, and repulsed by all—how can someone like that say, 'I am happy every hour of the day'?" Dr. Frederick Treves, at his funeral, said this: "I never heard him complain."
I am just getting in your business a little bit because we do not see the world as it is; we see the world as we are. Sir, if we are looking for something to complain about, we will always find it! Yes, sir! If we are looking for something to be grateful for, we will always find it! Our focus determines our reality. And this is the God who says, "Look up! Look up! Remember my promises; remember my goodness, my longsuffering. I am the same yesterday, today, and forever! You may give up on God; God will never give up on you! You can run from God; God will run after you! You can turn your back on Him, and you will find that His goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life! When you turn around, you are going to find a God with His arms wide open, ready to love you, grace you, accept you, and give you a second chance! This is the God that we serve! Hallelujah! Can I get an amen right there? Amen!
Count the Stars: Embrace Awe and Wonder
Go outside! Look up! I am a mess! Look up and count the stars! Count the stars! I forget the number of stars visible to the naked eye, but I think it is less than a thousand, give or take Northern Hemisphere. When we look into the sky, we are seeing just a snapshot—a moment, kind of a flicker of light. But I love the way photography—time-lapse photography—I will put it up—has captured, with the movement of the earth, this ability to capture the path of stars. You can do this anywhere, any time, and if you have a long enough exposure, is this not magnificent?
And here is my point. I actually preface "A Million Little Miracles"—I am like, I am going to put a C.S. Lewis quote right at the beginning, and this is that quote. He said, "Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story, which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see." I mean, we only see 0.35 of the light spectrum. We know so little; God is so big, yes He is!
We have to be careful that we do not miss a million little miracles hiding in plain sight. Now, taken literally, counting the stars would be the hardest command taken literally in Scripture. Why? Because we now think two trillion galaxies, every galaxy about 100 billion stars, so that means 25 sextillion stars—which if you do the math is 25 trillion stars per person! If Abraham counted just the stars in the Milky Way galaxy, and we will go with a median estimate of 300 billion stars, if he counted those one star per second, every minute of every hour of every day, just the stars in the Milky Way would take him 95 years and four months!
But here is the catch: an estimated 275 million stars are born every day! So it seems to me like in trying to comprehend the greatness of God, what would actually happen is Abraham would fall further and further behind. The more you know, the more you know how much you do not know, come on! No one can fathom the greatness of our God! Hallelujah! Eternity will not be long enough, said A.W. Tozer, to learn all that He is or praise Him for all that He has done. So I will close with this:
A professor of psychology, Dr. Kelner, said: "Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world." And by the way, the first... I do not have time; I write a lot in the book about Tov. It is this word—586 times in the Old Testament, seven times in Genesis 1, and God saw that it was Tov—not just good, but gooder than good, as good as it gets—too good to be true, but it is! But it is also original emotion. Do not miss this! God's original reaction to light is delight. And this happens at the end of each creation day. I think what God is saying is that I want this to be the first and last emotion you feel every single day! Hallelujah!
I think original emotion is childlike wonder! And that is where I would go back to what Thomas Carlyle said: "Worship is transcendent wonder, one for which there is now no limit or ceiling. That is worship." Think—all there is to worship is singing lyrics on a screen? No! No! No! If tears are liquid prayers, Spurgeon, if sighs are prayers that God can discern (Psalm 5), then do not tell me that wonder is not worship! In fact, I think it is His most primal form of worship!
That does not mean we worship created things; we do not worship nature; we worship the God of nature! We do not worship science; we worship the God of science! We do not worship sun, moon, and stars; we worship the God who hung them in the sky!
So let me close with this little story. Teddy Roosevelt had a friend named William Beebe, with whom he shared a love of astronomy. He would visit Roosevelt at the White House, and they had this little nighttime ritual. They would go outside, and they would locate a spot of misty light near the Great Square of Pegasus in the fourth quadrant of the Northern Hemisphere. Then one of them would recite the following: "That is the spiral galaxy Andromeda. It is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of 100 million galaxies—they were underestimating; this was 100 years ago! It is 750,000 light-years away. It consists of 100 billion suns, each larger than our sun."
Then Roosevelt would get a big smile on his face and say to his friend, "Now I think we are small enough; we can go to bed." There is a feeling of smallness in the presence of greatness that produces wonder. It is not the task of Christianity, Kalistos Ware said, to provide easy answers to every question. God is not so much the object of our knowledge as He is the cause of our wonder. Go outside! Look up! Count the stars! In Jesus' name, amen! Amen!