Monday, October 25, 2010

The Upside Down Kingdom

I'm going to do my best not to sound preachy or overly philosophical as I put my thoughts into words.  Sometimes blogs can sound pretentious in an effort to make someone seem pious or super spiritual.  The longer I've been on this journey with the Lord, the more I have become aware of my lack of piety in fact.  When we scale this hill, towards the House of the Lord, we inch closer and closer to Light that shows us who we are.  The things we're afraid of.  The secret places in our heart where we try to hide our indiscretions.  I guess I'm trying to say, I submit my thoughts in humility, to the aim of making this journey of Justice we are taking transparent to my brothers and sisters.

If you're reading, I'm blessed and humbled.  I offer to you my young experience in the Trenches of Kingdom Work, and hope to reveal to you the journey I've been on, as it's being revealed to me.

I'm spending my days thinking about the Kingdom.  If I'm honest, I have no clue what the Lord is up to.  I can say though, that when He opens a window into his Kingdom from time to time, Spirit and Scripture and Flesh all line up and make sense.  Wrongs are righted, no matter how small.  Seas are parted and mountains are moved.  Transgressions are forgiven.  There's food enough to share.  Smiles widen and tensions ease.  These are what it must be like to be in the King's proximity.  He once said, "Taste and see that the Lord is good..."  If the Kingdom had a taste, it would be like cold clean water to a dry mouth.  If you could see it, it would look like the marvel of my son as he attempts to make sense of a bubble landing on his finger.


So the Lord is getting ready to move the whole of Renovatus in a particular direction.  In a unified, mass effort, we are going to build the Kingdom of God, right here and right now.  We have fed the homeless for 5 years on "The Wall" in the heart of downtown.  The stories I could tell you of the Kingdom we saw there would make the hairs on  your neck stand straight up.  Then we saturated a neighborhood of the working poor in Reid Park for a year.  Tutoring kids for school, painting, yard work, garden planting, long conversations, home repair, kisses on the cheek, sweat, rides to work and church, and dirty hands.  We watch crime and prostitution statistics decline as the Lord expanded the borders of his Kingdom in that tiny neighborhood on West Blvd.

Now, the largest task yet looms in the distance, who's goal is still a little ambiguous.  Sex Trafficking.  Refugee communities.  Widows.  Orphans.  Homeless children.  Mental health patients.  Hospice patients.  The Aids Consortium.  Tendering the Elderly.  All noble causes, but we can only choose one.  I'm not nervous though.  We've asked for a vision and direction for Renovatus, and I know we'll get one. 


Here's how I know it will happen; the distinct ways that the Lord speaks to everyone on our team will slowly creep up on us unbeknownst.   For example, He lights me on fire fast.  I get excited and passionate right away, and could run a marathon.  Katie on the other hand, takes time.  The Lord gives her what she needs patiently.  We both arrive at the same conclusion at the same time.  It's like he ties up our narratives at their conclusion, though we took different paths to get there.  That's what He will do with Justice Small Group.  Tracey, Christine, Katie and myself, Dennis, Lisa, Elizabeth, and Erica...we will all arrive at the same vision at the same time in our own distinct ways.  That's how good He is.

So far, the thing that fills us with the most fear and passion seems to be Human Trafficking.  What does it look like to rebuild what the enemy has stolen there?  How will the Kingdom grow in the midst of modern day slavery?

 

"Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work."
~Mother Teresa

2 comments:

  1. I know I put my name in the hat Mat so to speak. But honestly I am frightened by my inabilities and inadequacies against such a noble vision. But I am willing to try...

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  2. Exodus 23:9 (New Living Translation)
    “You must not oppress foreigners. You know what it’s like to be a foreigner, for you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt."

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