Well Steve and I have officially moved into the Big Prayer House. And it's truly caught me by surprise. I am loving the idea of being in the house and the opportunity it is to be working in and for our community.... The shocking part was how scared, unsettled, angry and sad I felt.
Say what!?!? I am moving in a house dedicated to prayer, God, love and generally good vibes and the major emotions I have been feeling are negative? I think it really weirded me out because I just couldn't understand myself. Whenever I experience the unexplainable it always harder to accept.
I've been thinking and thinking and thinking about this. I've been so busy moving that honestly beside little snippets of prayer saying "oh thanx for letting us move here God" I haven't really been chatting with Him at all. (I mean I had boxes to unpack and rooms to organize!!) ***blush****shame***ducks head****
When I was at work someone asked me how it was going. I answered honestly and said "Well we got all the boxes and stuff into the house, but this move caught me off guard... I didn't expect to FEEL different with this move because we just were moving around the corner"....
I didn't expect to FEEL different....
This move caught me off guard...
I kept thinking about how I responded to my co-worker...wondering even more why this was? The other day as I was deep in thought I started asking God what the deal was. Why was I finding this hard? What were these feelings? This move isn't FAR... I've moved much FURTHER in the past, shouldn't this be easy?
I didn't audibly hear a voice, but this soft thought came into my head followed by the sweet comfort that I have come to know as my God being near to me... "Moving nearer to me isn't always easy, but it will be worth it." and then "Learn what this feels like, let it teach you, let it grow you."
Let it teach me what? Let it grow me?
Why is God so weird!!?!?
Why is God so weird!!?!?
I had to let this question really sink into my soul. How could moving just around the corner teach me more about God or people? What was he on about? I chewed on it a bit more.
This morning Steve kissed me good-bye before his went to work... I tried to fall back asleep (because he leaves crazy early in the morning to go to his school job. Hollah!! out there for all the teacher, staff, parents and students that do that on a regular biases!), but for some reason this morning I couldn't doze back off. I started thinking again about this place and how we have moved here to pray and how we believe that prayer changes things.
Then it hit me. God was teaching me how to be understanding and accepting of people who don't yet believe in him, or those who desperately want to pray and learn to chat with him, but think they have to sort out their life first before God will speak to them, or people that have KNOWN God for years, but just want to BE with him, or people that want to be spiritual, but are held back by their logic and feelings and struggle to understand or believe in God because they can't feel Him, or people like ME who get crazy busy with life and we forget to include God in it...
For all those people that hold back, get distracted or are down right lazy (me!) from MOVING nearer to God because they think connecting with God is some BIG moment with out realizing its more about the little moments, the little effort, the little moves that often bring us the nearest to God.
Being connected to God isn't about GREAT MOVES... its simply rising to the challenge to move nearer to God when and where he has us.
But wait a second "moving nearer to God"? That is a bit out there, how can we as regular people move nearer to God?!? We realistically can't shoot ourselves into the heavens can we?
But wait a second "moving nearer to God"? That is a bit out there, how can we as regular people move nearer to God?!? We realistically can't shoot ourselves into the heavens can we?
I wondered how we do this... How do I do this? Then a bible verses popped into my head:
"The Word (that's Jesus, the Son of God) became flesh and blood.... " just stop for a moment and think about that... the very spiritual, unseen, untouchable, unfeelable God the Son decided to be changed into something physical, seen, touchable and feeling-ful... woah! But back to this verse...
"The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one of a kind glory, like Father, like Son, GENEROUS inside and out, TRUE from start to finish." (John 1:14)
Are you getting this? God, who created all of this universe, if you can wrap your mind and heart around believing, went from being a fully spiritual being to being both fully God AND fully man.... and then he...
Took over the world....
Found the biggest and most royal castle and ruled the world he created from there.....
defeated every great ruler of his time and became the Emperor of the World!!!!!!
What!?!? NOOOOOOOOO!!!
This great God of ours, through Jesus, chose to begin his great story simply when he "moved into the neighborhood".
Not a great move, but a small one... not an easy move, but a hard one (after all it cost Jesus his life!). A totally SPIRITUAL act of redemption through a totally PHYSICAL act of living and being human on this earth. God's story of connecting to us is about him moving his spiritual self to connect with our physical reality in an effort to show us that are physical existence is connected to his spiritual reality.
Say what!?!? Basically what I am trying to say is this: if you want to meet God, if you want to connect with Him, if you want to BE with him... sometimes you need to be willing to MOVE.
Sometimes that moving will involve you moving from one form of thinking to another, maybe another moving will be about you intentionally getting up and going to a prayer room and being there to pray, or maybe in your own home you need to move from sitting when you pray to kneeing (or vis-a-versa) or maybe you will be moved to help your neighbor, share your food or be friendly to a stranger, or maybe you need to move to get your bible and actually read it and learn who this God is about instead of just saying all the time you want to know God but never making the effort to meet him, or maybe he is asking you to move house...
I think sometimes people look at people who are "into God" or "more spiritual then they are" and they simply assume that those people where born that way or dipped in some kind of special holy water. Those people who are better than us at being Godly must have some super God gene that was just built into them...right?? right?? RIGHT!?!?
Well let me tell you, as someone that is "into God", I am no different than any other person. I have questions about God existence, I am jealous of those who are more kind, compassionate and loving than myself, sometimes I want to slap people who are able to trust God and be secure in His love when their lives are going down the crapper. I struggle on a daily biases to even care to read my bible, pray or attend church gatherings.... BUT (and there is always a good but in the end of a blog).... I learned a few years back that "MOVING nearer to God isn't always easy, but it is WORTH IT".
So here is the challenge for us all. If you are interested in connecting with God when was the last time you moved for him? Not just spiritually ... but physically too! When did you last move to pick up that bible, kneel down to pray, go for a walk to talk to God, make that meal for the sick person, donate to your local homeless shelter, be kind to that lonely neighbor, recycle to take care of the planet, teach your kids to value quality over quantity, attended that group that talks about Jesus, went to a prayer room to meet God....???
The list of how, when and where to meet God is endless and totally personal... I couldn't begin to tell you how to do it... but I do know it will take YOU MOVING! After all, connecting with God is a two way street, its as much about God moving into our neighbourhood to be with us as it is about us moving into God.
So will you move?
I will because today I am Moved to Pray.
I constantly am trying to convince good people to come get involved in what we are doing in Colchester. (if you have been the target of my 'move to colchester movement' know that I think you are cool, that you have a great passion for jesus and you could be used here to some pretty great stuff!).
Steve and I love getting to be a part of our Boiler Room Community on our normal, little estate. It is so ordinary but so lovely. We are really blessed that the people that live around us are so generous and accepting. WE LOVE PEOPLE... and we want to help to make good things happen for people here on this estate. WE LOVE JESUS... and we are desperate to find good and relevant ways to share his story, pray for people and make spaces for people to have their own personal Jesus encounter.
There are lots of reasons why we love Jesus so much, but honestly its better to see that love in action than talk about it, so you will have to come visit us if you want to know why and how we love Jesus so much!
Plus, Colchester is an up and coming town I have no doubt. We can get a fast train to london in less than an hour, the music scene is exploding and I am not joking (every time we go to an open mic night or gig somewhere the talent is phenomenal). We have a few secret hidden gems for wining and dinning. Plus WE HAVE A CASTLE! wink wink.
So if you have ever fancied living in a missional community, if you have been thinking to yourself you need a move or a change but can't think where to go, if you need a good job and don't really care where you live, if you are coming to colchester for uni but don't want to live in greenstead, if you fancy moving to a neighbourhood where you can meet neighbours, do good things and get yummy roast dinners on sunday.... then think about getting in touch with me and lets see about working out a way for you to move here to Malborough Estate.
Also here are some killer job I have recently found on line that might help make you see the practical big picture of how you are going to make this happen!
Behavior Support Worker: work in schools to help model positive behavior
http://www.workingforessex.com/details.aspx?nPostingID=16176&nPostingTargetID=168854&option=52&sort=DESC&respnr=1&ID=QZUFK026203F3VBQB8M8MF60R&LOV1=6178&Resultsperpage=20&lg=UK&mask=external
School Crossing Patrol Officer: be a lollipop lady! (or man!!)
http://www.workingforessex.com/details.aspx?nPostingID=15987&nPostingTargetID=168499&option=52&sort=DESC&respnr=1&ID=QZUFK026203F3VBQB8M8MF60R&LOV1=6178&Resultsperpage=20&lg=UK&mask=external
Business Sourcing Placement Assistant: help process applications for colchester borough counceil
http://www.workingforessex.com/details.aspx?nPostingID=15798&nPostingTargetID=167859&option=52&sort=DESC&respnr=1&ID=QZUFK026203F3VBQB8M8MF60R&LOV1=6178&Resultsperpage=20&lg=UK&mask=external
Trainee Chef: make great food
https://jobsearch.direct.gov.uk/GetJob.aspx?JobID=1535027&JobTitle=Trainee+Chef%2fCommis+Chef&rad=5&rad_units=miles&pp=25&sort=rv.dt.di&vw=b&re=134&setype=2&tjt=&where=co2+7qw&q=&AVSDM=
General Assistant: help serve customers and run touchscreen till
https://jobsearch.direct.gov.uk/GetJob.aspx?JobID=1743528&JobTitle=General+Assistant&rad=5&rad_units=miles&pp=25&sort=rv.dt.di&vw=b&re=3&setype=2&tjt=&where=co2+7qw&q=&pg=2&AVSDM=
Before and After School Club Chaperone: possibility of extra hours as a playworker
http://jobsearch.essex-eyjobs.co.uk/pages/job_search_view.aspx?jobId=3696&JobIndex=4&interest=-1&workinghour=-1&qualification=-1&location=12&PageIndex=1&Number=7
Get Connected Project Worker: help vulnerable people to computers and internet
http://www.familymosaiccareers.co.uk/job_description.asp?cid=1185
Temporary Catering at Colchester Zoo!: feed people who come visit the zoo
http://www.colchester-zoo.com/index.cfm?fa=about.job.list§ion=4
Admin and Reception Duties or Guest Host: work at a Spa near Boiler Room
http://www.claricehouse.co.uk/Colchester/Work-For-Us/Work-For-Us
oh the fun that can be had!!
We are celebrating advent together as a community by doing this thing called the Jesse Tree. Today steve and I sat snuggled up on our couch with the Christmas lights twinkling remembering that the Christmas began as a love story.
The Jesse Tree took us back to the very beginning and reminded us that our creator God said "Let US make man"... our advent author referenced it as 'the great huddle of hearts'... how three beings (Father God, Son Jesus and Holy spirit) came together in love and imagined all of creations. Imagine all of me, all of steve and all of YOU!
It also reminded us that it was in love that we were made and created in the image of God ... which is love.
It is exciting and beautiful to realize how loving and perfect everything was in those first moments of creations. What was that like?
I then played steve this new song I just got. We sat listening to the song inspired by the story of creations. Its screams out let there be light! reminding us even more how God loves to make something in the mist of nothing. To bring light in spite of the dark... hope in the mist of despair. Getting so excited to unwrap more of this story of Jesus!!
For those of you who didn't know, Ramadan is a time that Muslim people set aside a whole month to fast and pray. This is really important to Muslim people because the Muslim Faith has 5 'must do' or 'pillars' that help confirm a persons faith and acceptance by God.... and practicing a month of praying and fasting or Ramadan is one of those 5 pillars.
And Also if you didn't know Ramadan is happening right now! From 20th July to 19th of August.
As a Christians, Muslim people should be very very close to our hearts. If you look (and you don't have to look that hard) you will see that our story is one and the same....
Once upon a Bible Story there was a guy named Abraham. He was just your average guy, but God chose him to do something special. God chose Abraham to be a part of His plan to save all the people in the world... (remember when God originally made the world it was suppose to be a place where no bad things happened, but because humans made the mistake of letting evil things (or sin) into the world by choosing bad over God's good i.e. naked man and woman in garden munching down fruit from the tree God asked them not to eat from... #EpicOops... God now had to come up with a way of getting his creation out of the dirty mess we made.)
So back to the Abraham... He agrees that he will be a part of God's rescue plan and then God tells him that the way he is going to do it is through Abraham's family... that Abraham will have a son and that son will have sons and they will have more sons and then... duh duh duh... God will send his own special son through this family into our world to rescue us from the mess we got in.
Abraham was more than happy to hear the plan, but also a little confused. See, he and his wife Sarah were childless and on top of it all God decided to tell Abraham his plan when he and Sarah were much to old to have babies (think of your grandparents and then add a few years!)...
But God told both Sarah and Abraham to just trust him that he would work it out. But ... you guessed it, true to our human nature Sarah and Abraham just had a hard time trusting that God could work this miracle child into their story... So they decided to take matters into their own hands... Sarah told Abraham to sleep with her servant girl and to get her preggo. Abraham did it and the servant girl, Hagar, became pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy named Ishmael.
But this wasn't what God had promised. He had promised that Abraham and Sarah would have a baby... not Abraham and Hagar. And to top it off once Hagar had her baby Sarah couldn't stand the sight of her or the baby and started to treat them horribly (even though this was all her idea to begin with!).
God reminds Sarah and Abraham what he promised and soon Sarah becomes pregnant and gives birth to a baby boy they name Isaac. Isaac goes on to have twins name Esau and Jacob... Jacob goes on to have twelve sons who become the 12 tribes of Israel... the 2nd born of this twelve is Judah who descendants have the famous King David (yep the boy that killed the giant Goliath) who's descendants have Mary and Joseph who become the parents of Jesus, God's promised child to rescue our world...
The End....
If only it was all that simple.... but see the one thing that humans keep forgetting is that their actions and re-actions to God's plans have consequences. God is in control of his plan and what is going on, but he isn't a puppet master. He lets us choose what we will do and also the fall out from that. If we choose to get involved in God's plan the fall out is God's amazing blessing. If we choose the opposite it often brings with it issues that make things complicated, but still not impossible for God to work out his plan... but way more complicated.
Remember Ishmael... well Ishmael goes on to have loads of kids too and his descendants believe that Ishmael was the child God promised. This has caused loads of tension between these two families... and that tension has continued as the two families have tried to tell the story of God's plan... one family divided by a moment in time when humans decided again that we knew better than God.
Ishmael's descendants have continued in their faith and are known as Muslims. Isaac's descendants have continued in their faith and are known as Christians. One family broken by humans trying to work out the promises of God through their own power instead of trusting God in his.
Both believe in the same God, but struggle to clearly understand and see who and what are God's promises. Muslims have missed that Jesus is the promised child because they are two caught up in trying to earn their place in God's story. Christians often miss the full importance of Jesus by failing to make the connection between the Muslim and Christian story of God, as well as failing to honor Jesus through a lack of love and care for Muslims.
So, Why do we pray for Muslim people?
we pray for them because if we look back at the story we realize that they are our closet brothers and sisters.
we pray for them because we realize that, through no fault of their own, they are often mistreated and hated.
we pray for them because often the way Christians treat Muslims completely dis-honors the Jesus we claim is their savior and loves them unconditionally.
we pray for them because they are so near to the story of God that its hard for them to see how Jesus is more than just a prophet but is actually the promised child of their and our great ancestor Abraham.
we pray for them because just like us before Jesus came and took our place, we to felt like it was through deeds and good works that we had to earn our relationship with God and it was hard... even impossible... and we want them to experience the freedom of knowing that Jesus has completed every law on our behalf and we are free now to just be in relationship with the one true God we all love and pray too.
we pray for them because we love them!
Join Colchester Boiler Room on 17th August 2012, 8p to midnight to pray during this season of Ramadan for our Muslim brothers and sisters. We all have much to learn and praying for broken families to be re-united is exactly the love Jesus died for us to show!
message me at rockstartina83@gmail.com to get involved.
If God is so good then why the hell (if there even is a hell) does evil exist in this world? This is a question that often comes up when people find out that I love God and think that being a Christian is one of the most important decisions I have ever made in my life.
Most the time when I hear this question I know people are more wondering why bad things have happened in their personal life... so often there is no reason to really try and defend anything because mostly people are just using this question to open up a space to talk about why they have experienced hurt in their own life and all they really need is a listening ear.
However, when I have these conversations with people I always find myself (after that moment) flipping through my bible asking God the same question... "Geez God, if you are so good and so powerful, why do we have so much crap going on in our world?"
Steve and I are responsible for telling the bible story for Messy Church this coming up Sunday. So, the other night we thought it might be good to read it again. After I complained about having to read 4 chapters of the bible in a row... (flip how spiritual do you think I am? 4 chapters is a big ol'chunker *wink/wink*) Steve and I settled down into reading the story of Noah.
The Story of Noah starts off as God looks down on the world and sees that everyone around him is doing evil, evil, evil. It says that God was sorry that he had ever even made humans because all they seemed bent on doing was bad things and it was breaking his heart.
So, God decided that he would just get rid of all the evil in the world. But in order to do this that meant he had to get rid of all the human and animals that were caught up in this evil. God probably considered just forcing the humans to do good, but he didn't want slaves or robots- God desired a family, relationships, he wanted people to want to choose to love Him. But not only were humans choosing not to love God they also decided doing evil was more to their liking and it was destroying everything good in our world- and God couldn't let that happen!
None the less, God being all good and powerful decided (as I hear many people ask today) to get rid of all the evil in the world... but getting rid of all the evil in the world comes with some pretty heavy consequences and let me just say, we as a human race don't fare well...
If you are familiar with the story of Noah, you will know that after God decides to purge the world of evil he can't bear to put everyone through it because he sees that Noah is a good man, who loves God and enjoys doing what pleases God. God decides to save Noah and his family and warns them what is coming and gives them instructions to build a massive ark that not only Noah and his wife and three sons and their three wives can escape in, but also two of every kind of wild animal, farm animals, bug, birds... the whole lot!
True to his world after the ark is built and Noah, his family and animals are safely inside the rain comes... and as the story goes for 40 days and 40 nights the entire world is flooded. God did what I'm sure the good people of that time were constantly asking, he got rid of all the evil... but that meant he also got rid of all the humans (save the few that were on the ark).
Now if all of this hasn't been an epic of enough story for you then hang on to the end. There Noah and his family are floating around on this new 'Water World' wondering if God had forgotten about them. But then the water starts to recede. And exactly one year after God gave his warning to Noah and his family they were able to come out of the Ark on to dry land. They were so grateful to be alive that they worshiped God and thanked him for saving them.
And in that moment God looked down on the world and I can only imagine the amount of joy and heart-ache he was in. Though he was glad to be rid of evil he hated that humans got swept away in that process. So God did something that would change the face of history for all time. He made a promise to all the humans left on earth... He promised them that never again- no matter how bad things get (and God knew humans had a bent toward evil), but never again would he kill every living thing as he had done during the time of Noah. Then he put a rainbow in the sky and said he would use this as a reminder to humans and himself that he would never punish his creation like that again.
****Pause****
Do we realize what a precious time we are living in? God is staying true to his promises. In spite of gangster using violence to control their neighborhood, dictators using their power to murder millions of their countrymen because of skin color, mothers abandoning their children for the next quick fix of sex or drug, despite thousands of westerners abusing millions of southerners so they can shop in air-conditioned malls and buy a shirt for less than a fiver and congratulate themselves for getting such a bargain as they rob helpless families of decent wages, regardless of men and women using each other for sex and claiming to be searching for love and not being prudes, of oil companies bent on making money at the expense of the environment and healthy community development, of 11 year old girls and boys being trafficked from eastern parts of Europe to the UK to become sex objects and toys for visiting guest to the London 2012 Olympics, despite toddlers starving to death in slums because they were left orphans when their parents died of HIV.... need I go on? famine, war, disease, .... or as the story of Noah would say "evil, evil, evil".... yet where is our great flood?
Why is God not hatching another natural disaster plan to rid this world of evil? Are we not tired of hearing and seeing evil?? God being all good and powerful can't you do something!?!?!? Do we really want him to? They say history has a way of repeating itself- what if God really did cleanse this earth from evil- would we survive? Would we be on the inside of Noah's ark or banging on the outside as the cleansing flood waters rise?
****Pause****
God is just as heart-broken now as he was in the time of Noah- But he made a promise... never again to make a plan to get rid of evil by killing off humans. God loves us to much to let that be the plan-
So a few thousands years ago God made up a new plan and then he told a guy named Abraham the plan and made him a new promise that involved Abraham and his family to being chosen as a special group of people that God could use to keep the promise that he made to Noah. See God's new plan was simple- instead of holding humans accountable for the wrong things they did he would send his son to take the heat for them... for all of them.
For the next couple of thousand years this family of Abraham lived waiting for this promise of God- as the world got more and more evil (because humans just keep choosing bad over just loving God)... then a couple thousand years old the beginning of God keeping this promises began. A preteen girl (yep she is related to that Abraham guy) in a no-where fancy place was visited by an angel and told she would carry the son of God in her belly. This girl believed what she heard and gave birth to Jesus.
Then Jesus did something no one else on this planet had the ability to do- being100% man and 100% God (wrap your mind around that one- you got it- Jesus was a super human) He chooses to cast off his power and ability to wipe out the earth's evil by any choice of natural disaster and instead chooses to take the blame for all the evil ever done (though he had never done one wrong thing his whole life) and then wipe himself out and all the evil with it!
That is what Jesus hanging on the cross symbolizes- all the evil being killed once and for all! But The story doesn't end there. See God still wants people to choose him. So he wanted all the people on earth to hear about how much he loved- how he loved them so much he sent his son to make a way for them not to be punished to death for the wrong things they had done, but to realize how much God wants them to be in his family- to be in relationship with him...
So in an extreme act of mercy God chooses to wait and let all the people in this world hear this great story that start thousands of years ago- A story about a very good God wanting humans to choose to love him, of him making them promises that keeps them alive and of him taking radical and extreme measures to make sure Humans survive the world being rid of evil.
So the next time you start asking yourself the question "Why is such a good God not stopping all the evil in the world?" consider the story of Noah... because just like during that time when God saw evil happening on this earth, said "Enough", hatched a plan to get rid of it, gave people time to prepare and choose weather they were inside the ark or outside and then followed through on the flood.... we are living in the sequel of that story.... God has seen evil again on this earth, he has said "Enough", he hatched a new plan that to get rid of evil and set it into motion when Jesus came and died for all the evil in this world- but the story doesn't end there... we are in the part of the story where God is giving people time to prepare and choose weather they want to love him or not. There is a time when God will rid this world of evil- once he knows everyone has heard what Jesus has done and they have been given the choice to love him- Jesus will come... and the rain he brings with him will bring more change to this world then was ever experience before- even more then Noah's story!
I don't know if any of you have become as obsessed with the new TV show "Once Upon A Time" as I have, but woah! Beside pure entertainment I find it an interesting parallel to The Kingdom of God that we read about in the Gospels (Specifically the Gospel of Matthew). See if you can see the Kingdom values that I did.
For those of you who don't know, the concept of the show is based around a character named Emma, who happens to be the daughter of Prince Charming and Snow White. However, the twist of this fairytale drama (or "Dram-airy" as I like to call it) is that Snow White's evil step-mother, The Queen, arrives the day Emma is born to steal away Charming and Snow's 'Happily Ever After'. The only way for Prince Charming and Snow White to save their daughter and the Kingdom is to put their daughter in a 'Magical' cupboard where she is transported to another realm where the evil Queen's magic doesn't exist.
When The Queen finds out that the baby has been hidden away she buys a curse potion from Rumpelstiltskin to banish the whole Kingdom to a place where they is no magic. This is so she can take away everyone's 'Happily Ever After'... and thus all the beloved fairytale characters that we know, are cursed to our world and live in town called Storybrooke. The only way for the fairytale character to get their 'Happy Endings' is for The Savior, or Emma (the daughter of Prince Charming and Snow White) to break the curse...
Her son found a fairytale book that contains all the fairyland characters and their stories. The show explains that Emma's young son trust everything that is written in the book simply because he believes, a classic child-like trust. Emma on the other hand is not so easily convinced. She constantly is telling her son that the stories are not real. However, her son is adimit that the stories are true, that Emma is a part of the Story, that the Story is not yet finished and that she can play a very significant role in how the Story ends.
Pause
In Matthew chapter 13 Jesus is desperate to get the idea of what The Kingdom of God is across to His disciples. Jesus knew that the hope he was promising His followers was wrapped up in them believing in Him and His Kingdom. So he wanted to teach them what His Kingdom is all about. He knew he needed to describe it using terms and life situations that the people around him were experiencing. In this world we describe kingdoms, cities and fortresses simply by the physical material that has created them or their physical location... but as Jesus describes the Kingdom of God He uses stories that paint a picture, not of high walls or rich markets or beautiful architecture... instead he explains the Kingdom of God in action, as a living and breathing form of life. Jesus took situations that the everyday normal person would have done to support their life (gardening, making bread, harvesting, treasure hunting, fishing) and explained how these were a reflection of Life in God's Kingdom... a space for people to mature, to grow, to have good, to be accepted, to be treasured, to be protected. God's Kingdom is a magical place that will exist regardless of weather people believe or not... BUT people can only get involved in this viberent Kingdom if they first choose to believe....
Pause
So what does this have to do with the T.V. series Once Upon A Time? In one episode Emma is getting closer and closer to believing the fairytale stories, but still is keeping a very healthy distance. In once episode Pinocchio (now a grown man named August living in Storybrooke) was reminded that he was supposed to help Emma believe in the Story. As long as Pinocchio helps Emma believe he could be human, but if he couldn't help her believe he would be turned back into a wooden puppet. In one desperate scene Pinocchio/August is telling Emma who she is, how she came into the world and that she has to believe in the Story. Emma refuses. Pinocchio falls over in pain as his leg begins to turn back to wood. In desperation he yells at Emma, "If you wont believe me then you have to believe this..." he then pulls up the leg of his trouser to relieve his wooden leg. Emma walks over and more confused then ever explains that she sees nothing. In shock Pinocchio realizes that Emma's denial to believe the truth prevents her from seeing the reality of what is happening. They both become more confused and desperate.In the season finale The Evil Queen is beside herself, desperate to make sure that Emma never believes. The evil Queen (who in our world is the mayor of Storybrooke) bakes Emma a poisoned apple turnover. Emma's son, desperate to make her believe in the story, eats the poisoned turnover and instantly falls into a deadly coma. In this life or death moment Emma tries to rationalize all the events of her life only to come face to face with herself asking the question "Are all the stories about the kingdom, her parents, her purpose really true?" An in a moment she decides to believe. A pulse of change instantly sweeps over Emma and the entire town of Storybrook... Through her belief Emma remembers the Story and her part in how it unfolds.
Emma runs over to Pinocchio/August house to find him laying in bed; his arms and legs completely wood. And for the first time she sees the real world she is in. She then realize that she has a part in the Story and if she want to get her happily ever after back she is going to have to get involved...
All this to say, I wonder if Jesus was here in this time (being born in our time rather than 2,000 years ago) if his use of the culture and everyday ordinary life situations to describe the Kingdom of God would go something like this:
"The Kingdom of God is like a fairytale kingdom. A kingdom made for happily ever afters, but trapped in a curse when it was attacked by an evil Queen. The Queen banished all the fairytale characters to a world where they forget who the real King is and who they really are. Under the curse no one believes in their King or the Kingdom. Even when the story is told to them they laugh at it and say it is not true, a story for children, a fantasy, a lie. The more the story of the fairytale kingdom is told, the more angry the cursed fairytale characters get. Even when special characters sent by the King are brought into the story to help them believe and to see the kingdom right in front of them they just can't see it because they refuse to believe. But for those who can be brave enough to believe that a kingdom of happily ever afters does exist and there is a King fighting to bring them back to his Kingdom, their eyes are open to see the truth; the truth of who they are, what they were made for and the Kingdom and King before them. Seeing this truth gives them the courage to claim the happily ever after they were created for."
About Me
- Teen Bean
- I'm just some regular girl trying her best to be a good friend, woman, christ-follower, wife, mom and adventurer (in no particular order). I love variety, trying new things and meeting new people and sharing experiences with others. All of which in one form or another can be found in this space. WELCOME!
Heart Heart Time!
Stevie and Beanie
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