worlds and kingdoms

i've been really thinking about this for a couple days now.

obviously, there are two worlds (the kingdoms of heaven and of earth). obviously, i seem to live in both of them... but what is amazing to me, is that most of the time that i spend in one world, is spent trying to spend time in the other... a bit overwhelming.

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one of those worlds is obviously, planet earth. the physical world. bodies, voices, senses, measurements, light and color, matter, air and soil and everything in between. this is the world that keeps me largely entertained and entwined. it is distracting, engaging, tempting, and sometimes fulfilling... it is a world measured by worst and best, metered by life and death, and explained and described by stories love and hate. and the people in it - the people with their laughs, their shoes, their coughs and quirks, freckles and beauty... the actual people that so brilliantly fit within this world, but were so obviously not made for it - these people serve as the most acute connection to the "more" that we all know is out there.

all you have to do is look in a hurting person's eyes, and you see it... there is more than this... there has to be more than this. this can only be the incomplete portion of a complete part. this is transitory, temporal... a resting place on a longer journey. this can't be all there is. all this noise, pain, germs, anger, war, separation, confusion, deception... this is not as much of a home as we may have liked for it to be.

this world holds nothing for me.

and so... welcome to the other world. the mysterious, the spiritual, the compelling world... the one made up of everything intangible, but everything worth longing for. the dreams our hearts relate to, respond to, and seek to live out in that physical world where our bodies exist. this is the world where even logic and reason answer to higher authorities than themselves, and where matter is not the most real thing. there are no trees, there is no grass, air, or soil... but there is purity and grace, unity, harmony, and freedom. there is beauty unmeasured, unruffled, not trifled with. God's purpose reigns, His plans endure, His name resonates far deeper within us than sound waves can reach... this is His kingdom, and it is being built. the entire physical world exists for its discovery - for the kingdom of heaven to be built, and for His glory to be known. that is the purpose of the other world, and God's existence is its axis.

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so today.

today i woke up in this physical world, in a physical body. a body with a sore throat and a runny nose, a body worn out from some unidentified bacteria or virus. a body that needs food and sleep and is bound and hindered by its lack of them.

i walked into the kitchen and washed some dishes that would have actually broken if i dropped them. i turned on a light that i could actually see, and my hand would have been burned if it had touched it. i'm very much alive and living in a physical world. i know this... and it really really sometimes seems like this is all that there is.

until i start to think. until i start to pray about things that are worrying me. until i sit down to read the Bible, the word of God... and then i read over and over again, that this world has nothing for me.

how incomplete it is... how meaningless, how fruitless, purposeless, how less it all is.

i read about the kingdom of Heaven. how it is not meat and drink, but rather it is righteousness and peace and joy (Romans 14:17)... how the hope of it will not disappoint us (Romans 5:5), because it does not exist as a matter of words but of power (1 Corinthians 4:20). i think about all the things i crave most from this life, all those things i beg for and dream for most when the room is dark and no one can see tears fall... and those things are not here. they are not anywhere here on this earth. at times it can get a bit confusing and discouraging to discern between everything... because i really do start to think that the things i wish for are actually here... because i have misunderstood - because i actually think that what my heart really wants is that guy, that job, that life, that figure, that place, those kids, that contentment.

but it has nothing to do with that... with any of those things. and at the end of the day, even if i got every single one of those "things", i would still want more. because the desires of my heart, the compulsions in my spirit have nothing to do with anything of this world.

they all have to do with one thing, and one thing alone.

one purpose and glory, one hope and desire fulfilled.

one kingdom and one Ruler, over all the worlds,

and all that is within them.

and it has never been about sound waves and grass and dating and buildings and food...

how grateful i am for the reminder,

that there is more to all of this than what my eyes can see.

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"Bless the Lord, O my soul;

And all that is within me,

bless His holy name." (Psalm 103:1)