Tathata

I was reading today about world religions, and an interesting concept caught my attention. Mahayana Buddhism emphasizes a principle called “Tathata”. Literally translated this word means “that-ness” or “such-ness”. For example, to practice Tathata a person is to take notice of the little things that make the world special. Like a particularly beautiful sunset, or a passing occurrence like a child saying something particularly profound without meaning to. Aren’t Christians called to do the same? But instead of wondering at the ability of the created to be profound, we are called to worship the Creator who gave it all meaning. Unlike Mahayana Buddhism, we have a personal God that arranged each one of those little things just for us.

Dying?

I was reading a friends note on facebook. To be honest, it was more like skimming. A line caught my eye, and I thought I would repeat it here, "God loves us so much He would rather die than be without us." Now I'm not sure about originality or where this person got the quote, but wow what a quote. Just think about that for a minute. We all know John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son...." But have you ever thought about it in those terms? God would rather die than be without us. Can you say that about Him? Would you rather die physically than be without Him? Martyerdom is not required of most of us, but a different kind of death is. A death to the flesh. We are called to die to the flesh (Romans 8:13). Paul later says in Philippians 1:21 "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." We may not be required to physically end our life as God did through Christ, but we are required to die to our sinful nature, our flesh. What would that look like? "(insert name) would rather die [in a hundred different ways] than live without Christ."