Kingdom of Heaven

"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!"

What a way for Jesus to enter into ministry, to explode onto the scene. No bushes to beat around. Just truth, and a call to action: The kingdom is here - Jesus, Emmanuel, God in flesh, the King of all Kings, is in our presence. So stop your mediocre way of living, turn around, and do a new thing.

I've been thinking about this Kingdom that Jesus talked so much about. "The kingdom of heaven is like..." and then he goes into all sorts of comparisons and parables, involving seeds, trees, banquets, fields, managers, and treasure. At times I get confused about the relationship of the Kingdom to these things. But when I look at all of them together, like a collage, and it looks like Jesus is saying, "Here's what life looks like when you allow me to be your King." And it's good news - it's full, abundant, crazy, beautiful, amazing life, so much bigger than life we could ever have without him.

In the past year, I've written a few short stories, and they all have this theme in common, of a King and a Kingdom, and what happens when characters become a part of it. I'd like to spend the next few weeks sharing these stories with you here on my blog, in small doses daily. Each week, I'm gonna post one story over a span of 4-5 days, beginning on Sunday.

I know a lot of you are artistic, and want to give you an opportunity to interact and respond to the stories, so if you read something and are inspired to create something (illustration, poem, song, etc) to go along with one of the stories, send it to me by that Friday and I'll post it on Saturday as an extension. I hope you'll do this! Would love to see what you come up with!