Come, Kingdom of God

They are saying that we will be getting snow overnight and into tomorrow, so I am assuming we will not have school tomorrow. But, of course, since such decisions are never made until I am up and showered, etc. I won't be getting any extra sleep tonight. It would be so nice to know it in advance so I wouldn't have to set my alarm.

I was finally able to go to the prayer meeting at my pastor's wife's house this morning. What a PRECIOUS, POWERFUL time it was. I am so blessed to have these women in my life who are just crazy in love with God. Being with them just raises my faith. Another thing that has stirred my soul this week is a preaching CD that one of my co-workers gave me to listen to. Sometimes I become so disheartened by all that seems so overwhelmingly wrong - the children who aren't cared for, the adults who don't want to grow up and put their children's needs ahead of their own, the many people who have cancer, the hunger in too many places, the horrid conditions that women and girls live under in much of the world, the people who are tortured because they worship God, the fighting, the genocide... Sometimes I really do want to be an ostrich and bury my head in the sand.

But my soul has been stirred this week. Here are a few sentences from the CD I've been listening to that keep coming back to me over and over again. "Satan loves for us to just be nice Christians and not make him any trouble. We add Jesus to our lives, but we don't allow Him to have any impact. We keep living our lives the same way, just happy that we'll go to heaven when we die. But THAT'S NOT THE POINT! The point is WE LOVE HIM!! We're not here on this earth just to go to Heaven when we die. We're here to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth!"

I do love Him. And I don't want to just be satisfied that I know I'll go to Heaven when I die, burying my head in the sand where it concerns the rest of our sorry world. I really do want to see the Kingdom of God and the will of God here on earth as it is in Heaven, starting with my little corner of the world. I am stirred up.

(I wrote the above before I went to bed, and now in the morning I'm thinking that the few sentences I tried to quote from that sermon don't make sense without the rest of the sermon. And the way I wrote them just doesn't have the same impact as hearing Andrew Shearman say them with his British accent! But I guess I'll leave them there for whatever they're worth. I just wish I could share the whole sermon with everyone.)