At Hand
LETTER BY BRIAN MORYKON
I’ve been pondering why Jesus said, “Don’t be anxious.” Because a good counselor will tell you those are the last words you should say to someone anxious.
The reason why those words from Jesus are power instead of platitude is because they are spoken from a place of authority. They are spoken about the Kingdom of God by its King. It is one thing for a well meaning friend to say about your test results, I’m sure everything will be ok. It is another for the doctor to call and say, You’re all clear.
The reality of the Kingdom of God is why Jesus could fall asleep on the boat while the storm raged on. When his scared friends woke him up and he calmed the storm and said, “Why are you so afraid?”, he was saying, Whether you live or die, you’re safe with me in the unshakable Kingdom of God.
When Jesus came, his primary message was, “Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand.” That didn’t mean the Kingdom was about to be here. It means the Kingdom is at hand like the pen on my desk is at hand. It’s within reach.
God has been King forever, so the Kingdom has existed forever. But Jesus did something new. He made the Kingdom of God available through himself to all people in all places at all times.
You may ask what this availability of the Kingdom of God has to do with an average Friday when you’re tired from a long week, people you love are hurting, creation is groaning, and it just cost $85 to fill up the minivan.
Everything, it turns out.
Like us, Jesus’ disciples had very human concerns and hurts. He was always inviting them to bring those concerns under the rule of God. He called them and us to repentance. That is, to think a new thought about how things really are.
Every moment is an opportunity to think that thought, to place our confidence in the Kingdom of God and its kind and capable King. Sometimes such confidence will change the circumstance; it always changes us.
A good place to start is Christ’s Great Prayer, which is both transcendent as the cosmos and as practical as a minivan: Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth — right here, right now — as in heaven.
Brian Morykon
Director of Communications
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CURATED BY GRACE POUCH
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In this classic talk from the Renovaré 1999 international conference, Dallas Willard explains how, no matter what hurt may come, the world is a perfectly safe place for us to be when we entrust ourselves to God’s care.
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Chris Webb helps flesh out the idea of God’s present rule in “The Kingdom is Calling.”
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Carolyn Arends explores how the third line from the Lord’s Prayer—Thy will be done … in earth, as it is in heaven—calls us to open ourselves to God’s reign.
Grace Pouch
Content Manager
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WORTH QUOTING
When Jesus directs us to pray, “Thy kingdom come,” he does not mean we should pray for it to come into existence. Rather, we pray for it to take over at all points in the personal, social, and political order where it is now excluded: “On earth as it is in heaven.” With this prayer we are invoking it, as in faith we are acting it, into the real world of our daily existence.
– Dallas Willard
The Divine Conspiracy
TO CONTEMPLATE
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Christ Preaching
Richard Parkes Bonington (after Rembrandt) 1820s
(source)
This painting was never finished. The artist stained dark and light areas on the canvas and then began roughing in the scene. Imagine the artist painting you into the piece. Picture yourself hearing (or re-hearing) the good news that “the kingdom of God has come near.” How do you look? Are you confused? Delighted? Reluctant? Are you “all in”? Or is some part of you still ruled by other allegiances or concerns? Now picture yourself letting go of any last remnants of your own kingdom, receiving the peace of God’s governance.
TO PONDER
Have Thine own way Lord
Have Thine own way
Thou art the potter I am the clay
Mold me and make me after Thy will
While I am waiting yielded and still
Have thine own way, Lord!
Have thine own way!
Hold o’er my being absolute sway.
Fill with thy Spirit till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me!
Adelaide Potter, 1906