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I’m trying to practice astonishment more. Part of the life with God should be the predisposition to be astonished at what God is doing in the world, including all the wonderful inventions he allows people, as his co-creators, to produce. So I don’t take for granted, for example, that we carry way more computing power in our phones than the astronauts took to the moon. Or that, by and large, our cars work for way longer than they did when I was growing up.

But nothing is more astonishing than the salmon. This photo of a short explanation posted in the Macaulay Fish Hatchery in Juneau captures it, and on the right is one of their salmon practicing it. Coming home. After 2 years in the open ocean, the salmon find their home stream.

How do they do that? “Using these and other techniques” they find their way home. It’s astonishing.

And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” (Genesis 1.20 – 22, ESV)

There are three things that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a young woman. (Proverbs 30.18, 19, NIV)…and let’s add, the way of a salmon returning home from the open sea!

And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching. (Matthew 7.28, ESV)

Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord. (Acts 13.12, ESV)