MITCHELL BLOG

Taft - Dimensions of God?

I want God to be bigger than I am…much bigger! We have so sanitized him and reduced his stature so that he will fit into our feelgood culture that we have lost sight of the God “whom to know is to fear.”

Scripture gives only hints of his dimension. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof…” “’The earth is my footstool,’ saith the Lord.” And more. When he descended on

Mount Sinai

in cloud and fire the mountain trembled and the people feared that the sound of his voice would bring their death.

Astronomers tell us of the incredible and explosive beginning to the creation of time and space. They tell us the size of the universe…and that it is growing. There are more galaxies than we have yet counted…billions of them…each with billions of suns in a dynamic and changing universe that is savage, violent, and beautiful with wonder.

Scripture tells us he was there…creating…at the beginning, and that he will be there at the end, when all else ends and he creates a new heaven and a new earth.

My mind boggles…and can only be empty of imagining what he is really like, for I lack the ability, the imagination, and the language to describe him. Jesus is his face, but even he is only the tiniest sliver of the completeness of God. We can only say that God is greater than we can imagine and stranger than we can ever imagine. We cannot even describe him as alive in the sense that we know life.

How can we know him? How can he possibly be concerned with the minutia of our mortal lives? How can there be an interface between his eternal, immense, creative person and our mortal, blindingly brief lives?

And yet there is. And yet God himself said,

 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast

and have no compassion on the child she has borne?

                                                Though she may forget,

                                                            I will not forget you!”

                        See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands…”

                                                                                    Isaiah 49:15

Incredibly, though we cannot grasp him, he sees us, knows us, and speaks of the tenderness of a nursing mother to describe his feeling for us. It is more than I can understand. I can only accept it and be captured by his determination to both create and to know his creation as a mother knows the child at her breast.

Incredible.

Taft - Communication or Information?

I am awash in information…Facebook requests, emails, television, texting, a daily newspaper, news magazines, many books, snailmail, and more. I am awash in information, but I crave communication. 90% of communication is non-verbal, that’s a proven fact. Eyes, movements of the body, facial cues, touch, the way words are shaped, tone and volume, posture, the way breath is taken in and metered out, the speed of words and expressions…all these and more combine to express emotional content, intention, sincerity, availability and so much more.

With the ubiquity of computers it is information up, communication down. Our young people are especially affected by this electronic imitation of life. As they enter the ocean of information they are slow to develop the skills of intimate communication and lagging in learning the intricate interplay of social etiquette by which we acknowledge the value of another’s expressions, needs, and worth.

I know, I am expressing the bias of my age as well as the concern I feel. Yet and all, at the end of the day, facing a full queue of email messages, I would much rather hear the voice, see the face, and experience the sensations of communication. A screen is just a screen, but a face is a feast.

What do you think?

 

Taft - The Center of Faith

A miracle stands at the very center of our faith. The death, burial, and resurrection are a miracle. Take that miracle from Christianity and the faith will crumble into irrelevance. Jesus wrapped himself in miracles. One would think that any observer of his ministry would be driven to belief. Not so. Listen to John’s observation from 12:37-38:

“But despite all the miraculous signs he had done,
most of the people did not believe in him.
This is exactly what Isaiah the prophet had predicted:
‘Lord, who has believed out message?
  To whom will the Lord reveal his saving power?’”

It is my observation that people believe what they want to believe, irrespective of evidence. Evidence counter to what we are ready to believe can always be rationalized, or ‘spun.’ But we believe in God, and once the existence of God is accepted, miracles are small stuff, mere illustrations of a greater truth.

I ask you to be honest enough to acknowledge God as a God of miracles. Here’s an example that will give you heart…”those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life is begun! All this newness of life is from God, who brought us back to himself through what Christ did.” (II Cor. 5:17-18)

That’s the miracle at the center of our faith brought into the daily grind of our personal lives. From the cross of death comes new life as we are restored to God. Will you believe it? Will you take God at his word and live as though he HAS done what he says he has done?

Have fun today! You are fully forgiven! You are now an eternal creature standing in the prologue of life! Water to wine? Walking on water? Healing the blind? Small stuff compared to what he has done for you on the cross. For you he has shattered the power of death and cast open the gates of eternity. Eden is restored.

“Dear God in heaven, how great you are. When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, I am completely humbled. How can you even think of me when the whole universe is yours to enjoy? Did I not have your promise that you think of me and love me, I would not believe it. I am humbled by your cross. I am ashamed, but grateful. I want to give myself to you without reservation. Make a miracle of me! Change my heart and heal my life. Remove my preoccupation with myself and turn my eyes to you. I trust you. I will follow you. In Jesus name, Amen”

Taft - A Life-Long Passion

I turned 67 last week. The weight of age is heavy upon me and my perspective on the essentials of life is changing. I have spent 45 of those 67 years in the professional ministry and now wish I could go back and have “overs.” My life has been full of programs, campaigns, rallies, training, and more administrative work than I would ever wish to see again. I was often so busy that I had little time to devote to the essentials, and my faith and my family suffered.

I am now trying to recapture some of what was lost…the passion of Jesus. A student of scripture and of history, I have reflected today on his passion.

“The next day, the news that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem
swept through the city. A huge crowd of Passover visitors
took palm branches and went down the road to meet him.
They shouted, ‘Praise God! Bless the one who comes in the name
of the Lord! Hail to the king of Israel!’…Then the Pharisees said to each other,
‘We’ve lost. Look, the whole world has gone after him.’”
John 12:12ff

To him Jerusalem would be the city of his death…and resurrection. To the crowd, as it sawing him coming, he was like a rock star. He was a celebrity, sensation, and expression of the power of God. He made the people feel good and he gave them hope. He entered the temple, sat down in the middle of the largest temple court (jammed full with people), and began what would be several days of healing and teaching to a crowd that was starved for the Bread of Life, blind for the Light of the World, parched for Living Water.

I know now that we are no different than they…that I am no different than they, save for one thing that makes us even poorer…we know who the Messiah is…we know how the story comes out…but still so many of us are unfed, unwatered, in darkness, craving the presence and the work of God. That’s why we pursue his passion, isn’t it? We crave God. We wish to somehow reach behind the façade of “religion,” behind the songs, the prayers, and words and find ourselves in the presence of the Almighty. As surely as Jesus rode into Jerusalem, we want him to ride into our lives.

I tell you (even as I tell myself), he is eager to do so. I find that I must daily invite him into my confused, occupied, sinful little life.

“Dear Jesus of Nazareth, Come to my heart right now. I ask you to make your home in my life and to possess me fully. I willfully give up those things I have held to rather than you and I ask you to be my king. Live your purpose in my life. I pray this in your name, Amen.”

“Ride on, King Jesus,
no man can hinder thee.
Ride on, King Jesus,
Make my blind heart to see
Ride on, and reign in me.”