How learning about the kingdom changed my life

Having not grown up in a Christian home, my cultural preferences did not reflect a church background of any kind. I was a product of my surroundings, and I had naturally surrounded myself with people who preferred heavy metal music over praise and worship, baggie jeans instead of khakis, and poetry and theatre over Christian concerts and retreats. It was who I was. It wasn’t a reaction against anything; it was just who I was.

When Christ took hold of me my freshman year in college, I dove in head first. I read the Bible daily, huge chunks at a time. I immediately started sharing my faith with the people in my life, not because someone told me I should or taught me how to. It was just something that came naturally. I felt the transformation happening inside me. I saw the great Christians around me who knew so much Scripture and who were very involved in their churches. I was told, without any words, that as I became more Christ-like, I would become more like them.

Naturally, having been touched by the deepest, most satisfying unconditional love, I wanted more. It was like a drug. It seemed that people like my roommate, who had grown up in the church and helped lead me to Christ, had more of it. People like her seemed to have it all figured out. So I, consciously or unconsciously I don’t know, began to leave the things “of the world” for the things “of Christ.” I traded in my baggy jeans and retro jackets for conservative Gap clothes and leather purses. I re-dyed my hair to its natural color and let it grow out to my shoulders. I got rid of my hard music and spent hours in the Christian bookstores. Over time, I stopped writing poetry and I stopped acting as well. I just didn’t have time for those things anymore, with all the Christian reading to be done.

I stopped hanging out with my non-Christian friends. After all, bad company corrupts good character, right?[1] Besides, they didn’t seem to understand me anymore, and I had caused so many waves by talking so openly about my new faith, that I felt an undeniable disconnect. I had my new friends, anyway. We went to Breakaway together every Tuesday, our Bible study every Thursday, and church every Sunday. Between all my encouraging, uplifting Christian events, I didn’t have time for anything else.

I got involved in a church, and even started a Bible study in my dorm. People began to affirm my spiritual growth and leadership potential. Younger girls began to look up to and respect me. I had successfully achieved spiritual maturity, at least for my age. I had been accepted into the Christian community. The old had passed away; the new had come.[2]

Things continued like this all through college. I graduated and began to feel a call to full time missions. I wanted my life to count for God, and it seemed like all the people who REALLY loved God ended up being missionaries. Plus, there truly was something tugging at my heart for Latin America that I couldn’t ignore.

I married a wonderful Christian man who grew up in a Christian family and a Christian school. He also sensed a calling for missions, so we began contacting parachurch missions organizations. God had different plans, however. He called us to Houston, where John worked at NASA, and I found a job with New Church Initiatives.

It was there that my husband, John, and I first heard about the kingdom. I mean, we had HEARD about the kingdom and had prayed for it to come a million times in reciting the Lord’s prayer, but we had never really known what that meant. The kingdom had something to do with angels and figurative puffy clouds, mingled with the terrifying end times where Jesus comes back with a sword sticking out of His mouth or something like that. It was too confusing and not too immediate, so I didn’t think about it much.

In NCI’s training class, our teacher pointed out that Jesus preached constantly about the kingdom and almost never about the church. So why was the church so central in my faith and yet I knew nothing about the kingdom? Now I understand that a kingdom is where a king reigns, and therefore the kingdom of God is where God reigns. It is a mystical kingdom that does not come with our careful observation, nor can we even point out exactly where or what it is[3], but we see its fruit. We see reconciliation, we see sacrifice, we see service and humility and authenticity and unconditional love. The things of God are the things that triumph.

We don’t see many things as well, because they are done in a way where only God gets the credit. People pray in their closets and give without drawing attention and fast without hoping people feel sorry for them.[4] He becomes greater; we become less.[5] Everything that is done for Him is done in Him and by Him as well, as His children die to themselves and truly live, step by step, in Christ, guided by His Spirit. This is the mystical, wonderful, freeing kingdom of God.

So how has it changed my life? For one, I no longer feel like a used car salesman, trying to sell people on a stylistic preference. I realize now that the only barrier between a person and eternal life should be the cross, which is offensive enough as it is! Cultural and stylistic preferences should not add unnecessary barriers. You don’t have to shop at the Gap and drink Starbucks coffee to be a Christian. Maybe that seems obvious, but for me, this is a long, slowly unwinding process.

Also I realize now that in college, I spent a lot of time doing good things for Christ completely apart from His presence or power. This isn’t what we’re called to at all! And what a frustrating life it is. Jesus Himself says without Him we can do nothing.[6] Nothing! I believe now that God is just as glorified, if not more so, by the little decisions in life rather than the big ones. For example, if the Spirit tells me to get out of bed and I sleep in 15 more minutes, then for those 15 minutes I was not in step with the Spirit. Now, maybe I slept in those 15 minutes in a bed in southern Chile where I am a missionary. But that’s not the point, because everyone admires and affirms me for being a missionary. I get the spotlight. But if I had heard the Spirit’s voice and obeyed, sacrificing 15 minutes of comfort, no one would have known except God. He gets all the glory. I get none.

My schedule becomes less and less cluttered as I begin to sift through the things I was doing for God and the things I was doing in God. Only the ones in God should remain. Everything else is outside of the kingdom. The kingdom encompasses both the “sacred” and the “secular.” Once we realize that our spiritual life should be a stream of living water flowing through every aspect of our lives rather than compartmentalized into Sunday morning springs, then we are truly free indeed. We are all called; we are all saints if we know Christ; we are all missionaries; we are all priests.[7]

Nicodemus had to be born again to see the kingdom of God.[8] Jesus told the Pharisee who understood the Great Commandment that he was not far from the kingdom of God.[9] The kingdom of God is like a guy who plants seeds, goes to bed, and wakes up to find growth that he can’t even understand.[10] The gospels are covered with the kingdom! Just look for the red letters.

I’m so glad I was taught about the kingdom before I went into the mission field. It has truly changed everything. I am not any more holy for going abroad than my friend Lindsay is for staying in her hometown and working for a newspaper. We just follow God. I don’t know why God led her to the Wall Street Journal and me to the streets of Valdivia, Chile, but He did, and He is glorified much more by our obedience than any of the details that the world, even the Christian world, holds so high.

It takes a huge burden off me too, because all of the sudden my life becomes less about “winning souls” and more about following the Spirit step by step. It becomes about praying for people and with people and praying for open doors and having authentic spiritual conversations and about seeing God in everything and about pursuing gratitude and holiness. It becomes more about the questions than the answers, about the journey rather than the destination. It becomes about Him, all about Him.

“Love the Lord Your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.”[11] This is the kingdom of God.

[1] 1 Corinthians 15:33
[2] 2 Corinthians 5:17
[3] Luke 17:20-21
[4] Matthew 6:5-6
[5] John 3:30
[6] John 15:4-5
[7] 1 Peter 2:9
[8] John 3:3
[9] Mark 12:34
[10] Mark 4:26-29
[11] Mark 12:28-34

God is a Volleyball Fanatic!

Today I had my weekly breakfast with one of my best friends, Marilyn. She participates in the campus volleyball team. We were talking about how God has been speaking to us lately, and she mentioned how He kept confirming in her heart that He wanted her to participate in volleyball. This had been a struggle for her for years after she accepted Christ into her heart. I don’t know where this came from, but years ago she got the idea that now that she was a believer, she had to drop volleyball to make more time for the “things of God.” For over a year she refused to participate and instead spent lots of time in Bible studies and at church events. Last year she decided to start participating but slowly and very cautiously and, I think, with a little bit of guilt.

This summer in February God spoke very clearly to her through a passage in the Bible confirming that He wanted her to participate in volleyball this year, that it was not her “spiritual” life on one hand and her “regular” life on the other, but that He wants to participate in every part of her life. She knows now that she is literally “called” to play university volleyball and that God is smiling over her when she does it.

I asked her what preoccupations she had about playing volleyball in the past. Her reply was like a knife to my heart. She said, “Volleyball was so much fun. I just couldn’t believe that it was from God.” These were the thoughts of a brand new believer! How have we as the church let this kind of thinking sink into our teaching?! Or if it didn’t come from the church, then why didn’t someone see it and expose it as the lie that it is?! I guess it pains me so much because I went through a very similar experience as a new believer in college. I dropped theater; I stopped writing poetry. Why? I honestly don’t know. I don’t remember anyone telling me to, but I didn’t see other Christians do it. I felt, as 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, that I was a new creation in Christ; the old had gone and the new had come. How I wish someone could have taught Marilyn and me that God never intends for us to live in a “holy huddle!”
“Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” (Colossians 3:17).

Guests of Honor

On our way from Texas to Valdivia, we spent a day in Santiago, the capital of Chile. Our flight had arrived in the morning, and our bus didn´t leave until late at night, so we had the day to kill. We called a good Chilean friend who was in town with her family, and they invited us over to their place for the day. We arrived with no expectations. Just excited to see our friend and get out of the heat. Much to our surprise, we walked into a beautiful home swarming with people, only to be escorted into the backyard where there were kids swimming in a pool, a guy grilling a barbeque, and piscosours for all! What was the occasion? Nothing, apparently. The hostess told me that her house is always like this. Full of family members. By the end of the day (though we were complete strangers, though we were culture-shocked Americans fresh off the airplane, though we had come empty-handed), they treated us like royalty. They allowed us to shower (more for their sakes than ours I think!), they stuffed our bellies with two full meals, they insisted we borrow bathing suits and join the fun, they gave John an bed to take a nap in, and they just welcomed us into the family! Even though the party wasn´t for us, and it would have gone on without us, we felt like the guests of honor.

I was gratefully reflecting on that day (we would have otherwise spent it in an un-airconditioned bus terminal), and it hit me what a beautiful picture it is of how the church should be. We are one big happy family with much to celebrate every day, even if it´s not a "special" occasion. And our door should always be open to the next sweaty ragtag to walk by. We should never be ashamed of our celebration but rather welcome everyone to join in! It didn´t matter that our Spanish was broken, our bodies were winter-white, and my legs were way unshaven after a month in jeans. They welcomed me in and thought of every way to make me feel like part of the family. I arrived to Santiago homesick and exhausted and left Santiago rejuvinated and hopeful... and overflowing with gratitude.

Passion

We made it back to Chile! Tons of goodbyes, one overnight plane, one overnight bus, and we are back in Valdivia. The past month has been a very cool time. One of the highlights, aside from seeing family, was the Passion conference held in Nashville, TN. Ester, one of our friends here in Valdivia, flew all the way to the US to join us, and we joined 18000 other students our age for four days of worship, discussion, and prayer. The pace was intense with events lasting 16hours per day, and we left very tired yet deeply refreshed. Afterwards we visited several churches in the Houston area, both to see what was going on in Texas and share what is going on in Chile. It was a priceless chance for us to reflect on how God is moving and pray about our next six months here. For Ester, the experience was a chance to see her culture through new eyes. She said that her love for her church in Valdivia has grown even more than before, and she is prayerfully searching for creative ways to connect her peers to the God she has experienced.

The Kingdom

Today we started doing our first leadership training with Marilyn using the Retrospect curriculum from NCI. It was pure sweetness. :-) We only made it through two pages in the hour and a half we had together because the conversation was so good. The focus of the material was the kingdom of heaven, which is what Jesus spent the most time talking about. I (John) am going through it more as a student than a teacher, because though I've been through the Essentials training material, my contact with Retrospect has just been informal conversations with Erin.

Anyway, I'm just blogging right now as an overflow of excitement. I am reminded that I think way too much about my walk, religion, and church, and too little about the kingdom. Maybe it sounds silly to say that, but for me it is a change in mindset. Normally, when I think about spiritual stuff, I tend to go from the original thought more shallow. Example: James says faith without works is useless, and I think of how I can act on my faith. Very useful to think about, but today, in thinking about the kingdom, every thought went deeper instead of more "superficial". Example: James says faith without works is useless, and I am reminded vividly how deeply satisfying and contagious it is when I am deeply dependent on Jesus. It's hard to explain, I know, but I guess that's good. Some things are just easier to experience than explain, and so life is a journey.