heart stirrings. Kingdom.

I have been attending Bloom church for a few weeks now. Andrew Arndt has been teaching through the Sermon on the Mount. The past two teaching have been on prayer.

He shared something about how, to find out the main point of Greek writing, you look at the center of what is written. If you look at the center of the Sermon on the Mount, you find prayer. And if you look to the center of the writing on prayer, you find Kingdom. For some reason, this brings tears to my eyes. I understand so little about what it looks like to actively engage the Kingdom of God and be a vessel of His Kingdom becoming reality on this earth. But, unlike every before, my very being yearns to foster this reality - for my life to be an avenue through which God is able to restore His creation to Himself.

Do you know how radically that has been changing my view of life, at its very core? How it changes the message of Jesus? How an absurdly impossible call to life, that we find in the pages of Scripture are transformed to a reality that we are chosen vessels – an avenue through which God will accomplish His purposes?

I know without doubt that I am not the person I was only a few years ago. Not in the simple way of growing up and learning more about life, hobbies and interests evolving and such. But literally, elements of my inner being have changed. The capacity within me to love a person, the yearning for truth, the struggle to surrender things that I once fully believed to be my entitled right, and other aspects. In recent conversations, I have wished that people could have a glimpse at the person who once existed. Not for recognition or the opportunity to boast, but for hope for redemption and evidence of healing. The deeper Christ calls me, the more I am finding freedom in my inability to exist as anything good apart from the abounding grace of God. Hopefully this is only the beginning. 

In the not so distant past, if asked if I truly believed that it was possible for me to exist as a new creation, I would have had significant doubts. I had spent years striving…and miserably failing. I believed I was the exception and deep inside, didn’t know if the power of the Cross was enough to redeem my brokenness. Filthy pride.

And what am I learning now? To surrender…continually. To surrender to a life greater than my own. I am learning to believe that the Kingdom of God is the only cause worth surrendering my life to. That while difficult, there is much life and freedom. That to hear faint beatings of the heart of God for this world is the most heartbreaking and precious sound. May I continue to press in closer…