What Does Your World Look Like, God?

I hear it a lot.  I’ve said it a lot.  “This world has gone crazy!”
One look around and we can see it.  The world, does, seem to have gone nuts.
And a read through Revelation confirms so much of what we are witnessing all around us.

My silent prayer used to be, “Okay, Jesus.  You can return now.  I’m ready.”

But as of more recent, my prayer has changed.

While I am certainly prepared for the return of Christ, I am convinced it’s not the “goal” of my Christian walk.

The prayer is this, “Our Father…. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  (Matt 6:9,10)

On earth AS IT IS in heaven.

And so the goal of my salvation becomes understanding His world so much that eventually the realities of THAT world infect THIS one.

The question becomes, “What does HIS world look like?”
There’s joy there.
There’s peace there.
There’s radical grace there.
There’s victory there.
There’s harmony there.
There’s contentment there.
There’s acceptance there.
There’s beauty there.

And while I have little control over the world at large, I do have control over my portion and contribution.  I do get to decide which world I am going to live most aware of, and which world I’m going to allow greatest influence over my life.

In John 18:36 Jesus says, “My Kingdom is not an earthly Kingdom… My Kingdom is not of this world.”

The assignment has been made clear: “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”  (Col 3:2)

When I set my mind and heart on things of this world I will live with fear, anxiety, stress, and discouragement.  But when I set my mind and heart on things above, I see things from a Kingdom perspective.  As believers in Christ, we have been given permission and full access to these Kingdom realities, and so our mission must shift.  Our focus must become: living so aware of heaven and so attentive to His world and His ways, that HIS world permanently affects mine.

My prayer is this: God, make me more aware of what YOUR world looks like.
Help me to SEE how You see.
Help me to BEHAVE the way You behave.

Allow Your world to be so in me that it affects everything I say and every thing I do.

I refuse to see sickness without the promise of victory.
I refuse to see inconvenience outside of the light of purpose.
I refuse to elevate depression and anxiety above the gift of joy and peace already bestowed from a ever-gracious Father.

It’s redirecting my thought life on a greater reality than anything this world has to offer.

And if we can wrap our brains around this, we can change every environment we encounter.

Bring Your world to this one, God, until Your world affects this one!