Choosing Kingdoms
Since I am just starting my on-line journal my first posts will be historical (yes, possibly hysterical as well).
As I come up on 60 years old (I am now 65) I noticed I have spent a fair amount of time concerned with our planet and the people on it. It’s not hard to find fault with government, society, religion, industry, or self. I have found myself ranting at times about self-serving government, greedy corporations and an apathetic public. I found the more I looked at the way we behave here on earth the more disease (a disorder of structure) I feel.
My left brain has no problem knowing that God is where my peace is yet I have a tendency to focus on the world.
Recently [remember, this is 5 years ago] a friend shared about looking at God’s kingdom government and not the world’s. I saw the picture, I was choosing the world over God. My pay-off was the dopamine rush of being right about how badly people were behaving. I was judge and convicted them. I noticed that by my thinking I was doing something righteous, forgetting what the Bible says about our flesh. Picture a control, rebellion, rejection dance with the devil.[1]
As I choose God’s Kingdom Government I begin to have enough of a heaven picture for the right brain to feel safe. I even feel included in the process. At times I have this picture that I have the capacity to stand in the fire and I will be OK, even able to sing in Joy.
The key difference in how I feel is that in man’s kingdom I feel hatred but in God’s kingdom I have compassion, grace, and love for my fellow man. It is in love that I can say what my Father says versus thinking I have the answer. If it was in our nature to govern ourselves in the best of times Adam and Eve would not have eaten the apple. In man’s kingdom I am limited to what’s in my left brain library and I end up in collusion or alone. In God’s Kingdom I co-labor with God and man. The end result is with God the relationship and process is where the true gold is.
[1] “Control, Rebellion, Rejection,” a concept named and developed by Chester and Betsy Kylstra. Stated in Restoring the Foundations 2nd edition, pages 339 through 352.
