“Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”
The ancient Hebrews didn’t see heaven as being a separate place on earth: it wasn’t the end goal, a different realm, or even where they went when they died (if they had been good and sacrificed enough). Heaven was all about the here and now: justice and mercy and compassion and freedom. Living well, here.
Embodying the name of God in our living and being right here, right now.
The Hebrews were waiting for their freedom to show up, but Jesus was trying to tell them that the Kingdom of heaven had already arrived: it was in them.
We keep praying that heaven would come to earth, but Jesus is telling us that heaven is already here: in you and me.
The Kingdom is here. You are here. The Divine is in you: inextricably wound around your blood and bones and breath and heart and spirit.
And yet, The Kingdom is also coming. We’ve got more to learn, more to grow, more to become aware and alive to in this whole “embody the divine” in and through our lives. It's a work in progress. And and if you look at the world around us, you’ll realise that we have a long, long way to go.
“God doesn’t build up – he builds down. Right into the soul. Deep into the hearts of people.”
Powerful, two minute reads that have helped change the script in thousands of people's lives.
And that's OK, because grace, grace, grace…
To see The Kingdom, you have to abandon most of what you know about other Kingdoms: God’s not building an empire, he’s not building monuments to himself that make man shake in fear and dwindle in smallness. He isn't conscripting an army to waste up with violence and conquering and tax collection. He’s not setting up town with cookie cutter houses and workplaces and people. Like the Romans did with the countries and lands they conquered.
You have to flip it. God doesn’t build up – he builds down. Right into the soul. Deep into the hearts of people. And then from person to person, through faith, hope, and love; kindness and compassion, mercy and justice, forgiveness and healing (not the quick fix miracles but inner transformation) the Kingdom establishes its roots. It’s like smoke drifting through the earth, being breathed in and out; being lived into. It’s passed along by touch, not decree. It’s more faith than sight, more hope than platitudes, more love than dominance.
But rather than it revealing something entirely new and separate and foreign, it's like a homecoming. The Kingdom doesn't lead you away from yourself, in fact, it's the opposite: it brings you to your truest self.
It reminds you of your origins, who you really are, and who everyone else really is, too.
It heals you.
“The Kingdom of God is not a place, of course, but a condition… When the Kingdom really comes, it's as if the thing you lost and thought you'd never find again is yourself.” Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking.
Written by Liz Milani
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