Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and all these things will be added to you. I first saw that verse when I became a newly single mother of three struggling to keep my family together. So it sounded like a pretty good deal to me. All I had to do was seek the Kingdom, and God would take care of our needs. Deal! So my first question was, What is the "Kingdom of Heaven"? Using the Bible to interpret itself I looked up all of the references to the "Kingdom" and wouldn't you know it - they were all parables. Next, I tried Mapquest. No help there either.
I figured that if Christ instructed us to seek the Kingdom, then it must be here and it must be "findable". Since the Bible didn't help me much, I tried the Gnostic gospels. Then I tried esoteric philosophy. Buddah. Zen. And finally in frustration, I prayed. I said, "God, I don't want to just seek anymore. I want to find!"
My daughter got married in October and that is when I got my first real clue to the Kingdom. On the surface, it was a beautiful, normal wedding. People were eating and drinking, talking, dancing and laughing. It was a joyous celebration. But there were things going on beneath the surface. People were letting go of grudges and offering forgiveness. There were reconcilliations. There were offers of friendships. And all of a sudden, I saw that the material realm and the spiritual realm exist in the same space; in the same place! Right here.
That sat with me for a couple of months and then one night, the parable of the farmer and his field of wheat came into my mind. In the parable, the farmer plants a field of wheat and in the morning he discovers that during the night, the enemy had sown tares among the wheat. The farmer's workers wanted to know if they should pull up the tares and the farmer said, "No. If you do that, you'll harm the wheat. Let them grow together and at the harvest they will be seperated." And that was the piece I needed to find the Kingdom.
The Kingdom of Heaven is right here. It IS in us and around us. Christ used parables to describe it not because He wanted to make it hard to find, but because it is hard to describe and parables are the best way. The relationship between Heaven and the Kingdom of Heaven is like the relationship of Hawaii to the Mainland United States. Hawaii is part of the United States and under the laws of the United States, but it is not part of the mainland of the United States. By the same token, we are not in Heaven yet (like Hawaii is not part of the mainland), but we are part of the Kingdom and under the laws of the Kingdom (like Hawaii is still part of the US and under the laws of the US).
Have you ever considered how you would behave in Heaven? Think about what Christ taught. Think about Sermon on the Mount. Think about loving God first and your fellow man second. Do you think the behaviors and laws that Christ gave us to live by here on earth will be any different in Heaven? This is why in the Lord's prayer Christ said, "Thy Kingdom come, they will be done ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN".
What makes the Kingdom hard to find is that the Kingdom of Heaven is NOT the only Kingdom here on the earth. There is also the Kingdom of Hell. When we look at all of the evil in the world we feel very far away from God and His goodness but that is because we are looking at the tares. The wheat is there. The wheat is there. Every day, we are given the opportunity to decide which Kingdom we will live in; the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of Hell. Consider this: Everyone alive at this moment are the future residents of Heaven and the future residents of Hell. If we all just died at the same time, we would go to one place or the other. The only thing that seperates us from our future homes is the fact that we are still alive!
So how do we enter the Kingdom? By believing everything that Christ told us. When you get in your car, you believe that your seatbelt will keep you safe so you put it on without even thinking about it. That is the level of belief required to enter the Kingdom. If you were in heaven, would you worry about anything? And didn't Christ tell us to fear not? If you were in Heaven and you prayed for something, would you have any doubt that God would answer you? So if you believe that you are in the Kingdom of Heaven, why do you doubt your prayers are answered now? We are like people on an overseas vacation. Even though I am not in my country, I still have the protection of my country. So even though we are on earth, we still have the protection of Heaven.
I looked up the definition of "Kingdom" and this is one of them: the domain over which the spiritual sovereignty of God or Christ extends, whether in heaven or on earth. Most of us struggle with our Christian walk because of fear. We fear lack so we are not as generous as we could be. We fear for our jobs and our economic security so we worry instead of offering up gratitude. Let go of the fear. Tell yourself that you are a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven and that every promise Christ gave us is just that - a promise. I guarantee, you will have no fear. And when you make decisions, make them with the faith of a citizen of Heaven and not with fear. Fear belongs to the "other" Kingdom, not God's.
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