The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You

Today my friend Marcus read the following words out loud to a large group of us.  As I listened something larger than me groaned deeply in my chest, and tears came involuntarily to my eyes.

Rev 21:1-8
21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.

These words come from John the Revelator, as his eyes are given a view to the moment of the redemption of all things.  A day we know lies ahead.  A day none of us can really imagine, because to imagine this moment would require some kind of framework in our minds in which we could categorize this event.  Matter and reality as we know it, being completely consumed and replaced by something none of us can know; this is what John saw.

But I was taken by the thing that stirred in me as I listened to Marcus today.

This world makes me tired.  Don’t read too much into that.  I like my life.  I have and expect to have some amazing adventures.  I get to particpate in supernatural exchanges.  A Lot!!  I love people and I am loved by people.

But this world makes me tired.  In the midst of the richest of experiences, people I love die.  People loved by people I love die.  Sickness, anger, perversion, all seem to have a lot of influence under the old order.  For every life I see radically changed, ten more line up, overwhelmed by their journey through this world, and seeking relief.

I cry.  I grieve.  I strain against the tide of pain.

I laugh, I celebrate, I dance with those set free and restored.

Then I cry again.  This world makes me tired.

And something inside of me, daily screams that there is more.  There is more than we see.  There is more than we access.  There is more to who we are than we can possibly harness with the limitations of “right now”.  I felt it stir today.  In my chest is a noble, eternal prince, destined to ride the universe with the Creator of all things and see creation in a way we can NOT currently envision. In my spirit is a deep connection to the Source of all Things, filled with love for the broken and the beautiful, and overflowing with Rivers of Living Water.  I know it is there, but most days, I struggle to access it for myself, much less pass it on to others.  Today I felt that man stir in me.  Grieving for the old order, but longing, no, starving for the New.

I long for no more suffering.  I strain for the day of the wiping away of every tear.  The passing of the old order sounds like relief overwhelming.  Undressing from this world sounds like coming home from a long century of hard labor and peeling off the work clothes covered with sweat, and dirt, preparing to wash off the clinging grime of the day.  What a relief.

But really…what sounds better than any thing…it is not so much what I will leave behind.  It is what I will pick up.  Shedding the weight of a troubled world, and the healing of my pain, and the pain of others borne in my soul sounds great.  But here is what I really want.

I want to be a son.  I want to feel like a son.  I want to receive like a son.  I will be His son and He will be my God.  To know that, to drink that in, to feel sonship in every cell of my body.  That sounds like life to me.

Those words from the book of Revelation stir in me more than I can say.  But I want to try.