What the Kingdom of God Looks Like

For the past few weeks, even months, I find myself being brought back to the Kingdom of God. Through things I hear or read or watch, the phrase keeps popping up.

I think before when someone said the words “the kingdom of God,” it conjured images of pearly gates and streets of gold and the reality of what things will be like after this life is over.

However, I see and hear a lot more discussion about living in the kingdom now, living as a citizen of the kingdom in the present and seeing God’s kingdom as both something that is to come and something that is.  Our students have been a part of events that encourage them to be “kingdom workers.”

Just this week I received a link to a blog post on YouthMinistry.com that talked about what the Kingdom of God looks like when life hurts. The entire article is good, but I like how the authors described the kingdom today.

The Kingdom of God is like . . .

• The middle schooler who makes space for a not-so-cool classmate at her lunch table because she remembers the day when Jesus made space for her in his Kingdom.
• A high schooler who opts out of the “party of the year” because he trusts that Jesus’ plans for his life are better than his friends’ plans.
• One college student who risks getting a lower grade for sharing her worldview in her coursework.
• The young couple who has little money but gives each other small Christmas gifts so they can give presents to children in the foster-care system.
• Divorced parents who choose to co-parent their teenagers from a place of grace and forgiveness because they’ve experienced grace and forgiveness from Jesus.
• A retired couple who finds joy in serving Jesus daily because they understand that no one ever “retires” from following him.

Some good thoughts for us to think about what it looks like to live as a citizen of the kingdom.  Maybe it looks like something from the list above. Maybe it’s totally different. How do we live as citizens of the kingdom now?

Good Post: The box that made me more well rounded – limitation

I shared a few weeks ago that my daughter started – or actually relaunched – a blog. She’s had some good posts, but this one is pretty insightful.

My blog contains post primarily about church work (primarily student ministry and youth culture), about books I’ve read and my family.  The past few years have contained many posts about basketball and Syd’s journey through high school, AAU and college.

As you will read in her post, injury has altered her intended course in the game of basketball.  But what she has learned – and is learning – is pretty cool to read.

In her post, The Box That Made Me More Well Rounded – Limitation, she begins this way:

The other day, someone asked me about my basketball season that I underwent this past year. Specifically, their question was, “what was it like playing on one leg?” Well, if you don’t know me I have two legs, don’t worry. But, for those who do know me know that I have had 5 different knee surgeries/operations on my left knee. Some were simple ACL replacements and some were much more extensive, involving reconstructions of ligaments, bone resurfacings, and a screw removal… I have some sweet scars. The main problem with my knee is that I don’t have much of a medial meniscus or much healthy cartilage left, both of which function as types of cushions for your bones and joint in the knee.  My knee hurts after most any moderate activity and swells at the sight of any basketball court for longer than 30 minutes.  So when I decided that I wanted to continue to play I knew that I would be “limited.”

Read the rest on Syd’s blog – divinesixght