To ponder

The paradoxes of God never cease to stop me in my tracks

"He was created of a mother whom He created. He was carried by hands that He formed. He cried in the manger in wordless infancy, He the Word, without whom all human eloquence is mute.
- Augustine

and-
Avoiding Easter at Christmas <-- this is a thought provoking article about seeing Jesus' whole life as important to our spiritual life (and not just his death and resurrection) This quote is one of my favorite parts:

Sometimes you go into public restrooms and you see the criminal engravings: “Anthony was here.” You’re not sure why Anthony is making this declaration, but it’s there, in plain sight, carved into the wall of the bathroom stall. You look around the walls and you find out that Deion was there too, as was Brian and Karen—which baffles you because this is a men’s restroom, so what the heck?

You see these same markings on trees and bus stop benches, and any other inanimate object someone deems a suitable personal landmark. And while I don’t know that God is pro-vandalism, he definitely had a similar idea in the person of Jesus—or Yeshua, the long-awaited Messiah.

Yeshua was God vandalizing this earth.

Forget the cross (just for a moment—I promise it won’t go anywhere). Forget the miracles. Yeshua showing up on this earth was God’s proverbial tree carving, His way of saying to all existence that “GOD WAS HERE.”

He came and He dwelled among us.

May you have some time in the next week to ponder how cool our God is!