One day while riding in the car, my son and I both said, after hearing a song for perhaps the twentieth time since purchasing it, “Wow, that song is amazing.”

A song can spontaneously speak to you in this way, even after multiple hearings. What was unusual was that it happened to two of us at once, during a leisurely car ride on an ordinary day.

God works like that. He’ll take the most mundane thing, and out of the blue it will become something extraordinary that zeroes in on your heart and takes your breath away.

In my imagination when I was young, I saw angels flying from trees. I wish I could see them still. There is far more opportunity for the mundane to become extraordinary when we are able to see things with a childlike openness, to come to our faith, as Jesus told his disciples, like little children.

“Man is a creature who depends on revelation. In all his intellectual endeavor, he should always listen, always be intent to hear and see. He should not strive to superimpose the structures of his own mind, his systems of thought upon reality…At the beginning of all spiritual endeavor stands humility, and he who loses it can achieve no other heights than the heights of disillusionment.” Dr. Friedrich Dessauer, atomic physicist, as quoted in Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water.

The imagination of the young isn’t restricted by limitations imposed by the world: criticism, fear, pain, disillusionment, twisted truths. Our creativity, our openness to the extraordinary, is diminished when these things prevent revelation from breathing life into us.

When we see like children, we are in tune with the joy of creativity. We are free to imagine and believe, when the world would tell us not to.

When I heard the song with an openness to what God wished to reveal, I heard something I hadn’t heard before. Someday, when I look at the trees, maybe I will again see angels flying.

Have a listen to the song that breathed life into my son and me, its revelation spilling into our car like magic.

I open my eyes to the breathtaking splendor of brand new skies
I come alive
Heart pounding
Voice resounding
This is the sound of my rebounding
A creator’s brand I bare
And forfeit the scars of a love to share
This is the sound of foundations shaking history in the making
This is reformation
This is love overtaking
This is the sound of redemption
This is here
This is now
This is love overtaking me.

~Ascend the Hill, “The Reform”

Is there a song that spoke to you? Have you seen something in the ordinary that revealed itself as new?