Hello Friends!
If a Doctor prescribes a medication for me I want to know the benefits. There may be some side-affects but I can handle those as long as I know in the end my mind or body will be better because I took the pills. If awe is one of God’s inexpensive mental health prescriptions it is helpful to know the benefits. The good news is there are no negative side-affects.
I just happened to stumble on the benefits of awe. One day I was in Michael’s craft store looking for a new Christmas decoration. A piece of wall art with the words “Fall on your knees.” got my attention. As I stood looking at it I felt God’s Presence. I wanted to buy it but resisted the impulse buying temptation deciding to come back in a few days. Thankfully it was still there. I hung it on the wall in my prayer room. Every time I walked by it I had the same feeling of God’s Presence that I had had in Michael’s. I felt like I wanted to get on my face on the floor in awe of God.
Being a writer, I decided I needed to write a book on awe. (God of Wonders: 40 Days of Awe in the Presence of God is that book.) The first step of course was to Google “awe.” I was surprised to find more articles on awe from the secular world than from the Christian world. Dr. Dacher Keltner and his team at Berkeley did the first major study of awe in 2003. From that study hundreds more have been done showing the benefits of awe to the human mind and body. The following is a list of these benefits as discovered by scientific research
7 Benefits of Awe
1 - Reduces level of inflammation, which is a contributing factor for diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and Alzheimer’s.
2 - Reduces depression as it releases endorphins.
3 - Reduces anxiety because awe calms fight or flight response in the brain.
4 - Reduces feeling of loneliness.
5 - Disrupts default mode of egocentricity in the brain.
6 - Reduces materialism and the stress associated with the pursuit of things, fear of loss and comparisons with others.
7 - Enables us to discern the truth more clearly about others, our world and ourselves.
May we learn to dwell with the God of Wonder in the place C.S.Lewis described as the “region of awe.”