You may have noticed that over the past few weeks I have been reviewing books that come from a little bit off the beaten path, so to speak. I have been reading, enjoying and reviewing books that have come our way from lesser-known Christian publishers. It turns out there are some fresh, excellent titles coming from some of these smaller publishers.

From Credo House Publishers and author Steve DeWitt comes Eyes Wide Open, a book about learning to enjoy God in everything. Let me say it from the outset: this is a really good book. I enjoyed it thoroughly and benefited in very specific ways from the time I spent reading it. Let me tell you about just one of the most important things I learned.

The place to begin when considering the topic is with a question like this one: Why do I enjoy _________ so much? You can fill in that blank with a kind of food or a form of art or even with a beautiful landscape. Why do you enjoy that thing so much? What draws you to it? What does it do in you and for you?

DeWitt wants to help you appreciate those things even more than you do now, and in order to do that, you need to understand beauty and joy and wonder from a biblical perspective. You need to know why God made this world as wondrously beautiful as he did. The author’s reflections on this topic, more than anything else in the book, have resounded in my mind and heart.

Beauty was created by God for a purpose: to give us the experience of wonder. And wonder, in turn, is intended to lead us to the ultimate human expression and privilege: worship. Beauty is both a gift and a map. It is a gift to be enjoyed and a map to be followed back to the source of the beauty with praise and thanksgiving.

This was tremendously helpful to me, this idea that beauty is meant to evoke wonder. Wonder, in turn, is meant to lead us to worship. The analogy of the map is helpful—beauty is meant to point us to the source of all beauty. It’s a simple progression: Beauty to wonder to worship.