This Beautiful Mess – Chapter 1

Chapter one of This Beautiful Mess introduces the idea of the kingdom of God, and how it can be beautiful and messy at the same time. Love it. In the last couple of years, I have become very interested in the kingdom of God. Through classes and professors, and books like Divine Conspiracy and The Secret Message of Jesus, I’ve learned and thought and questioned what the idea means.

Living in present-day America, we often get the message that the kingdom of God is America, or that it is like America. If we get a bit more spiritual, we start to think maybe it’s the end of the world, when Jesus returns and rules over all the earth. But we don’t get the idea that it might mean something to us now. And this, I believe, is why the phrase “kingdom of God” has such a bad taste in the mouths of people we might talk to about it.

Anyway. Like I said, here we are introduced to the idea that the kingdom of God is a beautiful mess. It is messy in that we are messy. We are not expected to clean ourselves up. Jesus is cleaning us up, and using our messes. At Revolution, we often talk about how messy we are. But, in all honesty, the atmosphere there is “Is that all you’ve got? Come on in.” No messes are too messy to be beautiful in the hands of God. And that’s what this chapter is getting at. The beauty is that God likes us. That he wants to experience us, and us to experience him.

• 29 Sep 2007
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• Posted In books, spirituality