{"id":10518,"date":"2022-12-10T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-10T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/?p=10518"},"modified":"2022-12-04T16:53:56","modified_gmt":"2022-12-04T21:53:56","slug":"it-taxes-our-imagination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/it-taxes-our-imagination\/","title":{"rendered":"It Taxes Our Imagination!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n<iframe title=\"It Taxes Our Imagination! 12\/10\/22\" allowtransparency=\"true\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" style=\"border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);\" scrolling=\"no\" data-name=\"pb-iframe-player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podbean.com\/player-v2\/?i=rdy7f-132e31e-pb&#038;from=pb6admin&#038;share=0&#038;download=0&#038;rtl=0&#038;fonts=Arial&#038;skin=1&#038;font-color=auto&#038;logo_link=episode_page&#038;btn-skin=60a0c8\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>It is a story that taxes our imagination\u2014this story of God taking human flesh, of God becoming one with us.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Who but God would choose to enter human life in an insignificant village in an out-of-the-way corner of occupied Palestine, born to a humble mother who, in the eyes of the world, displays questionable virtue?&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>The birth is heralded, not to the movers and shakers of the day, but to a lowly group of shepherds.&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s a story that demands eyes of faith, a story that prods us to see what most people do not see, a story that challenges us to envision what few people would envision.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>And that is what repentance enables us to do, to see life with fresh eyes, to notice what others ignore.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Henri Nouwen has something similar in mind when writing some years ago in&nbsp;<em>Gracias!,<\/em>&nbsp;a journal of his experiences in Latin America. Nouwen writes &#8212;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>\u201cThe small child of Bethlehem, the unknown young man of Nazareth, the rejected preacher, the naked man on the cross, HE asks for my full attention.&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cThe work of our salvation takes place in the midst of a world that continues to shout, scream, and overwhelm us with its claims and promises.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>&#8220;But the promise is hidden in the shoot that sprouts from the stump, a shoot that hardly anyone notices.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks to Joel D. Kline<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What about Jesus being born in Bethlehem taxes YOUR imagination?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>WE HAVE GOD\u2019S JOY IN OUR BLOOD!!!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is a story that taxes our imagination\u2014this story of God taking human flesh, of God becoming one with us.&nbsp; Who but God would choose to enter human life in an insignificant village in an out-of-the-way corner of occupied Palestine, born to a humble mother who, in the eyes of the world, displays questionable virtue?&nbsp; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"qubely_global_settings":"","qubely_interactions":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"qubely_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baby-Staring.jpg",114,76,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baby-Staring.jpg",114,76,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baby-Staring.jpg",114,76,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baby-Staring.jpg",114,76,false],"medium":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baby-Staring.jpg",114,76,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baby-Staring.jpg",114,76,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baby-Staring.jpg",114,76,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baby-Staring.jpg",114,76,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baby-Staring.jpg",114,76,false],"ocean-thumb-m":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baby-Staring.jpg",114,76,false],"ocean-thumb-ml":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baby-Staring.jpg",114,76,false],"ocean-thumb-l":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baby-Staring.jpg",114,76,false],"qubely_landscape":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baby-Staring.jpg",114,76,false],"qubely_portrait":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baby-Staring.jpg",114,76,false],"qubely_thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baby-Staring.jpg",114,76,false],"rpwe-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baby-Staring-45x45.jpg",45,45,true]},"qubely_author":{"display_name":"Medard Laz","author_link":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/author\/medlaz\/"},"qubely_comment":0,"qubely_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/category\/daily-treats\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Daily Treats<\/a>","qubely_excerpt":"It is a story that taxes our imagination\u2014this story of God taking human flesh, of God becoming one with us.&nbsp; Who but God would choose to enter human life in an insignificant village in an out-of-the-way corner of occupied Palestine, born to a humble mother who, in the eyes of the world, displays questionable virtue?&nbsp;&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10518"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10520,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10518\/revisions\/10520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}