We are b
lessed I know to be able to play such an active role in the lives of our grandsons. Doris keeps the boys every day at their house while Josh and Jennifer teach school. Jon-Mical, who is 5, attends pre-k school across the street but Jakson, 2, stays with Mimi all day. This morning when Doris walked into their house Jakson jumped off the couch with a joyful smile and exclaimed, “Mimi’s home!”
There is an innate wisdom in little kids that we tend to forget as we get older. Somehow they recognize truth that eludes us in our later years. Jakson declared something this morning that we often ignore. Home is more about a presence that a place. It is more a state of mind that a physical address. For Jakson, if Mimi was there it was home. It really didn’t matter where she slept or kept her shoes. And believe me she has lots of shoes.
Jesus talked often about the Kingdom of God. He spoke of coming from and going to, as in “Where I am going you cannot come.” But most of His conversation about the Kingdom was in the here and now. “The Kingdom of God is among us,” He often said. It seemed the Kingdom wasn’t so much about borders and boundaries as it was about being. We are not IN the Kingdom of God. We are not FROM the Kingdom of God. We are the Kingdom of God and where we are the Kingdom is.
That means a couple of pretty important things. First it means that we are never outside of the Kingdom. Even on those dark and lonely nights when we wonder if anyone knows or cares, we are surrounded by the Kingdom. I wrote recently about a time that God was silent but not distant, when we felt alone but not abandoned. You are a Kingdom person and He is always there.
The second thing it means is that we are never fully inside of the Kingdom. I mean we can’t go in and close the doors and pull down the shades and lock the rest of the world out. We ARE the Kingdom of God and we take it with us wherever we go. That is both a wonderful privilege and an staggering responsibility. Where there is darkness we don’t take light. We are light. Where there is discouragement we don’t take joy. We are joy. Where there is hopelessness we are hope. We go where the Kingdom isn’t so that It is.
Paul says of that, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Jesus says, “Greater things than I have done you will do.” Jakson says of that, “Mimi’s home.”
