You can imagine my surprise this week when I received an e-mail from Twitter saying, "God is now following you on Twitter." I have always believed that God is omnipresent--certainly always near wherever I am. But this was something new. Jodi wrote about it for her Easter 2010 Seattle Times column. Here is what she said:
I turned to see what had caused my husband's outburst of laughter. "Now that's a new one!" he chuckled, pointing to the subject line of an e-mail notification he'd just received. "It says, 'God is now following you on Twitter.'"
Sure enough, someone who'd claimed "God" as their Twitter account name had started following my husband's tweets. It got even funnier as we read on:
"You may follow God as well by clicking on the 'follow' button on their profile. If you believe God is engaging in abusive behavior on Twitter, you may report God for spam.”
"God may not appear in your follower list. God may have decided to stop following you, or the account may have been suspended for a Terms of Service violation."
I know my husband is an amazing man with many admirers, but this takes it to a whole new level. He'd better be careful what he tweets these days!
We live in an interesting time. There are so many ways to stay connected, even with people we don't know and will likely never meet. Yet for all our social networking and technology-enabled associations, I'm not sure we've made much of a dent in the world's loneliness equation. There's just something about looking someone in the eye and having face-to-face conversations that can't be replaced by pithy quips on a computer screen.
When I first began to write this column, I had a photo shoot so that I could be properly introduced to Seattle Times readers. The photographer was a delightful person, a true pro who put me at ease as she did her work. For one shot, she had me sitting outside under a large tree. "Look up like you're looking at God," she instructed. I looked up. "Now bring God just a little lower," she added.
I lowered my gaze and smiled. We'd been chatting about this column and what I might write about. "You just gave me an idea for a column!" I replied. "I think that's what Jesus did. As a Christian, I believe He brought the essence of God, His truth, character, and love down to eye level, so we could see and know Him."
One biblical writer calls Jesus "the Word" the understandable human expression of the divine God:
So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father. No one has ever seen God. But his only Son, who is himself God, is near to the Father's heart; he has told us about him.
John 1:14, 18 New Living Translation NLT
Jesus is God at eye level. His death on the cross means that God came down to us รข€” to look us in the eye, to bear our sin and pain. But Easter, which I will celebrate with millions of Christians around the globe on Sunday, means also that He intends to raise us up to His level. When we proclaim He is risen!, we're acknowledging that Jesus faced down humanity's greatest enemy, death, and won.
The biblical writer Peter says it so well:
Now we live with a wonderful expectation because Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. For God has reserved a priceless inheritance for his children. It is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And God, in his mighty power, will protect you until you receive this salvation, because you are trusting him. It will be revealed on the last day for all to see.
1 Peter 1:3-5 (NLT)
Now that is a God worth following and I don't mean on Twitter.
You can also read the article online here:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011493425_detrick03m.html
