A Kingdom of the Heart -

"Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added as well." - Matt 6:33

“Who knows the power of one life given over completely to the purposes of God….Yours may be that life.”

Oswald Chambers penned these words in His classic devotional, My Utmost for His Highest.  It has echoed in the mansions of my heart since the day I read them.

Richard Foster, in Streams of Living Water says holiness is "The ability to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done…the divinely transformed heart, by its very nature, will produce right action …Holiness is world-affirming.  The holy life is found smack in the middle of everyday-life.  We discover it by being freely and joyfully in the world without ever being of the world." 

 What happens to our lives when we get caught up in the action of God?

Over the past few years I've gone to a specific market to shop for groceries.  It's found smack in the middle of a very impoverished, "everyday-life" neighborhood.  I didn't decide to shop there out of charity (I wish I could say I did); I decided to out of need.  I had become quite hardened around the social and economic needs of our community and, along with that, I found myself smitten with the finer things which made me more and more discontent.  So I went there for God to do a work in me. 

While submerging myself in poverty seemed like a good practice a the time, second thoughts came quickly (Don't they always when change is on the horizon?) stepping up to the market, I was smothered by it's impoverished realities - the smell, the crowd, the strung-out person high on who knows what.  I was bothered that waiting in line took so long because a woman was paying via government aid-food stamps. One time while I shopped, a man, likely with a form of paranoid schizophrenia, followed me unexpectedly.  He was worried he might come down with the flu so he talked incessantly about it for 4 rows!  

I was feeling invaded from every angle. "Don’t these people understand that I have things to do? - Important things! I don't belong here”, my smallish heart bemoaned.  Assuming whatever encapsulated itself in the world of Michelle was somehow more valuable than what was held in theirs.  Yep…wish I could say I was more holy than that, but I wasn’t.  Pitiful really, I had no idea the offensive smell was partly due to the stench of my own arrogance and self-obsession.  The fact is, I did belong there.  THERE it’s where God was working on me.

One day, as I made my way along the broken sidewalk to the store entrance, I was again taking in this mixed up marketplace when God nudged me, "Michelle you are no different.  You too are impoverished. These people are beautiful.  They are lovely. And yes, they are broken.  The system in motion has all but destroyed them, and the system of self-made, personal-kingdom building that has been set in motion inside you is going to destroy you unless you do something about it."   It was the kind of remark a passionate, loving father would give to his beloved child.  I knew this was an invitation to encounter His love in a new way.

While I crossed the tracks from one side of town to the next, I wondered how Jesus felt when He crossed the tracks from Heaven to earth to inaugurate His Kingdom,... and I was finding him afresh on the other side of town, where His kingdom was establishing itself in me.   I didn't realize it at first, but these everyday-life encounters were incarnational, Jesus-in-the-flesh moments, and God was using them to change me.   

The paranoid man?  He's there almost every time, and how lonely it must be for him. I am lonely too when fear takes over.  I grapple for answers row-by-row just like him, only it’s from the silent space of a soft warm bed.  I wonder, where does this man sleep?  Who takes care of him when the sun goes down?  The woman with food stamps?  Well, they are many and while I may have food in my pantry, I am a beggar at the feet of Jesus all the same and only the aid of His grace will nourish me.

I still shop at that market.  I still hate the smell and sometimes the wait at the register bugs me too, but I more readily see Jesus' face in others and God fills me with deeper compassion because I not only see Jesus, I see myself - needy and holy.  We are indeed “glorious ruins”, every one of us.  And Jesus mingles with us in the mire, making us pure.   No matter our story, we each hold a sacred space meant only for the light of Christ.  What will it take to ignite it?  For me it takes bumping up against my own impoverished self and letting God into the mess.  Somewhere in the visit God ignites His love-light and it has no other choice but to shine.  

I suppose as the church, or as Dallas Willard has called them, “Societies of Jesus”, becomes more present to a needy world, we will have better societies altogether - communities that are ignited and lit up with His love. 

I thought when I began this practice I would have to let go of beautiful things, but they were merely fanciful distractions that wooed me away from God’s heart.  Real beauty showed up behind the grime and I learned that His good and beautiful kingdom-system brings good and beautiful life when God’s love is encountered and lived out through His children.

It’s lived out in everyday spaces.  Who knows the power of one life given over to God?  What happens to our lives when we get caught up in the action of God?  ….Well, I am now asking myself, "What would a daughter of the Good-king God do - right here in the middle of everyday life." 

Sometimes that means helping a weary mom to the car with her groceries.  Sometimes it means smiling when two sets of eyes meet at the cash register. Sometimes it means stopping my cart long enough to talk to the paranoid man and bless him with God's good will.  Sometimes it means bigger things that require significant risk and sacrifice!

Why would any of us do such things?  Because it's what a son or daughter of the King would do.   It shimmers with God's love and becomes contagious. 

…It is “His Kingdom come, His will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven” – Matthew 6:10