The Kingdom Is Here
The message I often heard in Christian circles growing up went something like this: We’re here temporarily, so evangelize all you can, and then get the heck outta here. It’s all gonna burn, anyway.
It never set well with me. Actually, it bothered me a LOT. My faith often felt very foreign, off in the distance, waiting for someday.
I knew this world was clearly made beautiful for a reason, but I didn’t have any concept of how I could invest my life in the here and now and if that was even okay.
Thankfully, my mom bent down to point out tiny crocuses outside my kindergarten window and modeled inhaling the intoxicating scent of the lilacs in the backyard.
I always felt so swept up in the beauty of the world and knew it was important but didn’t know how it applied to my faith. I felt like I should hold it loosely. There was guilt around enjoying food and paranoia over how too much would negatively affect my body.
It was probably during my time living in Dallas, TX after Steven and I got married when my faith perspective began to shift from “distant someday” to the sacredness of everyday. A lot of this had to do with putting down roots in a home in the city and then creating a small but flourishing garden in our own urban backyard. Sandwiched between two other houses, we grew beans and zucchini and irises and two children who picked wildflowers and cherry tomatoes with chubby toddler hands.
Then, we moved to Tennessee, and I became a farmer. I became intimately connected to the soil, the natural elements, the seasons. I became more invested in the literal earth beneath my feet. Everyday, I see both growth and loss unfold before me - new fruit tree buds and golden hour rays that warm my soul in winter.
I now understand that we can experience glimpses of the Kingdom here on earth, now. Of course, it’s not perfect or fully redeemed yet. It is still fraught with imperfections, violence, evil, brokenness, and things that go very, very wrong.
But the kingdom of God isn’t just a far-off place we never get to feel or touch. It is visceral, sometimes behind a thin veil and sometimes at our very fingertips.
I feel it here, when people gather around these tables under a starry sky.
Kindred Dinners
God clearly gave us this land for a reason ~ for people to experience peace and connection. Our hands are literally so invested in the soil now, and every person who’s stepped foot here is part of it. Kindred.
All of Creation is a love story. God is in the midst of us now.
Anything Good…
Beautiful…
True…
Glorious..
Liberating…
Freeing…
Life-giving…
These are all evidence of it.
How kind that God keeps meeting us in the here and now, while also wooing our hearts to a place much greater?
The kingdom is here because God is with us, and what we do here, while in the flesh, in the soil, in relationship, matters for eternity. Or at the very, very least, it gives us a tangible example of what’s waiting for us in ultimate, perfect fulfillment of the kingdom of heaven, when everyone will be is included, and we will have the ultimate nourishment, the ultimate picture of unity, the ultimate feast of feasts, the ultimate table laden with abundance. (Isaiah 25, NLT)
Until then?
May we choose to see the ways that Love is written in the world for us.
May we see that the smallest sun flares in our backyards and buds on the trees and kind smiles from strangers and rainbows in kitchen sink bubbles and sunsets outside kitchen windows and words of encouragement from friends when we need it most…are all part of the Rescuer pursuing us in the Kingdom on earth. Here. Now.
“Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life.”
