As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him. [Matthew 9:9 (NLT)]
In Arizona, sightseers can walk out on the Skywalk, a transparent horseshoe-shaped cantilevered bridge that juts out 70 feet and stands 4,000 feet above the floor of the Grand Canyon. In Illinois, visitors to the Willis (Sears) Tower in Chicago can step off the Skydeck onto The Ledge, a glass box that extends out more than four feet and is suspended 1,353 feet (103 stories) above the city streets. Two miles away, in the John Hancock building, visitors to the Windy City can get another unique cityscape as eight visitors at a time hang out on the TILT from the Hancock’s 94th floor. Called a thrill ride, riders stand on a glass platform 1,030 feet over the city that that tips down over the edge of the building at a 30-degree angle.
The Skywalk is bolted to the canyon’s rim and can support seventy 747-passenger jets. The Willis Tower Ledge is made of three layers of half-inch glass and topped by another quarter-inch protective layer. Designed to hold five tons, over six million people have safely ventured out on it. Like it, the TILT is constructed of precision fabricated steel and several layers of reinforced glass and over one million riders have safely dangled 94 stories above the street on it. Although I believe all of these viewing platforms are well supported, regularly inspected, and considered safe, I will never set foot on any of them. I will never experience the thrill or enjoy the stunning views they offer simply because believing these structures are safe isn’t enough to make me commit to stepping out onto any of them. Intellectually believing something is true doesn’t necessarily mean we will act on that thought.
While I’ll miss seeing the Grand Canyon from the Skywalk, viewing fifty miles across four states from The Ledge, and hanging over Michigan Avenue on the TILT because of my lack of faith, there is one experience I don’t want to miss because of a lack of faith: a relationship with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Let us never make the mistake of intellectually believing in Jesus, that he actually existed and even rose from the dead, and then not believing deeply enough to take the necessary steps to actually follow wherever He may lead us! We’ve got to step out in faith to walk with Him. The view from Heaven is one experience I don’t want to miss. How about you?
We don’t believe something by merely saying we believe it, or even when we believe that we believe it. We believe something when we act as if it were true. [Dallas Willard]
Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall. [Proverbs 16:18 (NLT)]
When I was a little girl and got sick, my mother would dress me in a fresh pair of pajamas, tuck me into her bed, get out her hairbrush, and do my hair. “Why bother?” I’d ask, “No one is going to see me.” She’d always reply, “God sees you and you want to look your best.” I found it comforting, as I lay in bed, to know that both God and my mother were watching me.
The billboard’s message read, “When push comes to shove, don’t!” It was sponsored by a nonprofit foundation that uses a variety of media sources to encourage positive values, good role models, and a better life. “Hard to argue with a goal like that,” I thought before discovering that some people took exception to their peaceful message. Re-tweeting it, one rock musician told his fans just to “shove harder.”
The early church encountered difficulty in trying to reconcile the humanity and divinity of Jesus. In the 5th century, one group, from Alexandria, referred to the Virgin Mary as Theotokos, the one who gave birth to God, while the group from Antioch insisted that she was merely Anthropotokos, the one who gave birth to the human nature. Trying to bring about a compromise but pleasing no one, the bishop Nestorius suggested that the term Christotokos, the one who gave birth to Christ. The controversy, however, wasn’t about Mary; it was about the nature of Jesus. Did Mary give birth to a man who also was God or did Mary give birth to a man who later became God? The debate continued until 451 when the Chalcedonian Creed was adopted which confirmed the two natures of Christ (human and divine) in one person.
In January, there will be an Empty Bowls event in our town. Attendees will purchase a bowl and then fill it with soup and bread donated by local restaurants. The money raised will help feed the more than 36,000 food insecure people in our county. To make that event possible, 4,500 one-of-a-kind bowls are made by local potters. Then, with the help of local volunteers, the bowls are painted and fired. Recently, several of us from church gathered to decorate some of those bowls. While we painted, I thought about the potters who made our bowls—how they formed and reformed their creations until they were just right. Varying in shape and size, no two bowls were exactly the same and, by the time they are painted, each will have a personality of its own. When their purchasers are done eating soup from them, they will be put to different uses. The ones embellished with paw prints or bones probably will be used by pets, and the others may be used for popcorn, nuts, cereal, loose change, or even soup!
Devotions of the Heart 