There was once a boy, not unlike you. In fact, he was made in the likeness of Someone no one had ever seen. He knew he wasn’t quite what he should be, so he couldn’t belong or sit still. Something inside kept reminding him there was so much more. He searched under rocks and looked inside caves, the forest hinted at greater things, he climbed up to the tree tops, bounced on the canopy, traveled roads in foreign places, slid down mountains, surfed asteroids in outer space. Never once could he find something new. Every path had been tread already. Yet something called him deeper still, farther along, further in. He knew he could never settle. He knew there was no going back. He heard a voice riding on the wind, speaking in undefined details and metaphors. He would sit on subway trains and moss-covered boulders and he would wonder how the infinite, the true reality, could be realized on this planet in a time such as this. The beauty witnessed in all creation is the expression of a Divine imagination. Creators never stop creating. They can’t help it. The boy tried to get outside his finite mind to see what was beyond him. To learn and be shown what the Creator was still creating.
The humans tell him there is nothing new and truth is not something to be explored. That there isn’t anything new to be known. That truth has been around for 2000 years, so let’s just tell the same stories in different ways. That the only adventures left to be had are ones of survival, to get through the day. That man is an undeserving wormhole sucking everything back to the dirt. And we should live our lives with our heads bent to the ground whispering thanks to God for not destroying us.
But when the boy would start to believe those lies, he would get away to a quiet place. Put his ear to the ground and write down what he heard. He wouldn’t hear drums of war, that’s not our fight. He wouldn’t hear the earth quake in fear, we are not of this world, how could we be afraid? What he hears is something else. He hears silence, and in that silence he hears a heart beat. It sounds like an untapped reservoir, full of life, no matter the season.
If we can just slow down for only a second, we can notice a whole network of tiny movements happening, usually blurred by our progression towards a silly conception of a life goal. It’s what you can notice when you pause, that space in between breaths, that crucial moment where you refuse to blink because something is happening and you won’t miss it for the world. Noticed only when we use our imagination to connect the stars in the sky, making a constellation art piece. It’s the elusive mystery of a kingdom unseen. Where we finally realize we are already part of something beautiful. Reach out, because it’s there. It touched this earth an age ago, and after all this time, new fingerprints are still being uncovered.
Begin to be a kid again. Be apart of a new childhood; welcome to the neighborhood. I talked to the trees and they will happily drop their leaves if we will play in them. Admire them. Look through them, with all their color and uniqueness, and let it connect to the part of our soul that never wants to stop changing. The part that is always smiling. That doesn’t take anything serious, but fully acknowledges how everything is significant. Where an adventure is always taking place.
Close your eyes, or open them. I’m walking this one out with you. Listen to the whirlwind of woodwind instruments echoing through the woodlands. Wind the music box one more time. Tell me a story. I want to hear Your voice. Speak to me in that universal language, so I can understand no matter where I am, because You are there too.
Why notice the stars when you can never get close enough to touch them? Because we all want to feel something deeper. And their wondrous existence makes us feel infinite. That’s where I want to get lost.
Ecc. 3:11
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
A call to create flows in the veins of the earth. The trees understand this. Their roots grow deep, even through rock and stone, to reach the life beyond them. But the boy is not a tree. Trees know their purpose. They know what to do. He does not. He never got a letter in the mail telling him what he was and who he would become. He wished he had some magic or a superpower, something unique to show people he wasn’t crazy for believing this way. Words are just words until something happens. Is that all he has?
Who would have thought it would be so hard to feel alive? He starts getting discouraged, so he pulls his hood up and puts on another song. A change of rhythm, a helpful melody transporting him to a higher place outside of his head. A reminder that there are others like him. Others who are with him in his longing. The few who actually believe God will do the things He promised.
The point of the temporal is not to add an experience to your collection. Eternal beings don’t have keepsakes. I don’t think Jesus sat around telling stories of the places He had been and the things He had done. He didn’t build His own temple to fill with treasures – He built us and placed treasures within our hearts. That’s what He wants to talk about. If you don’t initiate the expedition to dive deep and uncover your uniqueness and use what is given to you to create and bring about revelation of the unseen, eternal kingdom of God, then that will be the greatest tragedy of our time. We will each be putting to death the very thing we are placed on this planet to create. We cannot support a halfhearted heartland.
The kid scans around and something always catches his eye. But when he looks back for it, nothing is there. That’s what the kingdom of God is like to him right now. How can this be? Luke writes, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” The kingdom of heaven is not for heaven, it’s for earth. It is for us right now. This is the reality Jesus lived in, the one He preached to any who would listen. There is no life apart from the life He gives to us. And the only life He gives is a full one. If we realized how giant we really are, we wouldn’t fall short of reaching the kingdom God made for us. If we knew what our newly created selves looked like, if we knew what these new heavenly bodies could do, this place would be a whole lot more like heaven. We would enter the heartland of the kingdom.
Don’t identify with dead things.
The boy wishes he knew more about all this talk about an invisible kingdom and how to get inside. Oh how he would tell you of the secret mysteries of what we can almost see, if only time would ignite the spark. All he knows is that he doesn’t know. But sooner than he might think, with a flash of the light of eternity, something will happen and it will change him forever. What was previously hidden, will be unearthed in these earthen vessels. The smoke from the raging firestorm inside of him will clear. And he will tell the whole world what he sees. God is not done creating. There are new expressions of Himself yet to see. And they will be made known through us. Things that were here all along, that we didn’t even know existed. Made just for you.
*header image by Sara Shakeel
firebeardblog 
As always Josh ….this post is so good….love you so much…..so anxious to see all of you this weekend….:)
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I just love how your mind works bud, always causes the squeaky wheels of mine to start turning. This was beautiful (and not sad! 🙂).
I’m with the boy! Trying desperately to feel alive, and follow His calls despite the world breeding me to believe so differently. God has called us for so much more, and this girl is falling more in love with the journey every day.
Thanks for sharing Josh!
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