This is That

• For Christians wanting to experience God's Kingdom
• Spring Harvest regular Martin Young helps you see more of God in life
• You'll gain a new perspective on what God's Kingdom looks like

For many of us, we don't just yearn for something better, away from this existence: we look for this one to be packed full of goodness and satisfaction. As a release and relief to the rigours and horrors of the here and now, a present day heaven would be a first choice if it weren't so unimaginable. This longed for, already tasted, sometimes-held-sometimes-lost rightness of life is the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

When the Kingdom is experienced, we usually know it and appreciate it, even though we can't always define it or recognise its source. We know the feel of its breeze on our skin, naked and not ashamed. The Kingdom of God is it. It's what we are all longing for, deep down: every human being on the planet. It is the way that we were always meant to live, our default culture. This Kingdom of Heaven has always been the number one plan for the earth and its inhabitants – birds, fish, animals and people. It is like a code or rhythm or set of musical motifs established a very long time ago, to which humanity and the whole of creation would live and move and have its being. The Kingdom is the call of the King: the song of the King, the breath of the King, the words, thoughts and actions of the King; in harmony with the many varied response of everything that the King has made. Except there are also times when it disrupts, annoys and provokes in us reactions that seem the opposite of such peaceful satisfaction.

 

Sometimes the presence of the Kingdom is experienced within and around us with an uncomfortable tension of glad rightness but also a secret and selfish bitter resentment, or even anger. It is so right and yet somehow feels aggravatingly wrong. We end up challenged to live differently, to think differently, to be different...