Kingdom Thoughts

I've been thinking about the Kingdom of God a lot this week and I've come to the following conclusions. The Kingdom of God is like a famous evangelist who gets half the town to put his bumper sticker on their cars. It's like an old NBA basketball arena that's packed full for 3 services on Sunday morning. It's like a well articulated vision that resonates with a bunch of people.

A couple of years ago, while I was in a small group that was doing some spiritual disciplines type stuff. I decided one week I would read the Gospels and Acts, straight through - like a story, rather than studying and dissecting it. I decided to read it in the Message, a modern paraphrase of the bible (not a strict translation). It was a really great experience, it's crazy I had never done before. I was struck by a lot of things: I thought Acts was compelling but weird, John was really weird and quite different than the other Gospels. But what struck me most was the talk of the Kingdom. It was the central idea in almost everything Jesus said, but it was a concept I had never really thought about before. Most of what he said or did was linked to the Kingdom of God (or Heaven, which is the word used in Matthew). I got the idea then that the Kingdom was different than what I thought Jesus mostly talked about. Maybe it was more than somewhere you went after you died or something that would be manifest after some sort of apocalypse. He talked about it being close, or arrived, or within us. (In lieu of a book review, I'll just say I just finished Brian McLaren's most recent book, where this is the main subject. It was pretty good.)

He also described the Kingdom of God by telling parables of small things: mustard seeds, yeast, a lost coin. These small things had something in common: they could make a big difference. I've been obsessed with this concept for about half a year now, ever since I wrote my "inspirational speech" for my leadership development class. Maybe because I'm so bad at these things, God is trying to point out what I need to work on. This weekend I was on a secret mission to spot the Kingdom of God. Here is my list of sightings:

• Fresh homemade salsa.


• Feeding my friends' infant nephew while having a post-dinner talk about life and such.


• A struggling single mom sharing her amazing story with her church family (I was lucky enough to be visiting).


• A one-year old's birthday party with a bunch of friends.


• A friend calling me because he had good news and wanted to share it with me.


• A late night walk with the dogs. (It's been insanely hot, so we hadn't been on a walk for 3 days, so the dogs were quite excited. Especially Pretzel, who lives for walks; she was really soaking it all in.)

I guess at this point, it is obvious the first paragraph was facetious. I think we really get caught up in the wrong things sometimes, looking to do grand things to further God's will. I'm trying to look for opportunities that aren't quite as grand, where I can make a small difference and let God do the heavy lifting.