a kingdom thought~~

Until the home becomes the church, the church is merely religion.

--mbs

A Great Day for Flying

If I have a choice between flying or driving, you can believe I'll choose driving.  Everytime.  I just go by the mentality that "if God would have wanted us to fly, He would have given us wings" sort of thing.  (The crazy thing about all that is by June of this year I will probably have achieved Elite status with Continental airlines....go figure.)  Every time I make airline reservations for a trip and every time I board a plane, God and I get on a very intense, personal level.  

Steve Willoughby preached a couple of weeks ago that "perfect love casteth out fear."  When I board a plane, it's obvious I don't have perfect love...in fact, I would say my feelings for the aircraft are closer to perfect loathing.  So now you know one of the top items on my prayer list. 

Anyway, I digress.

After having come through BOTT 09 and had some very personal, private talks with God about some very personal, private issues that have been out on the table for a long, long time and about which I thought He might have begun to simply ignore, I find out that He's been working in my behalf even since before I put the issues on the table.  He's been silent about it...wanting to see if I would trust Him, probably!...and choosing to hide from me all the ways the beautiful picture really works together.

An illustration here: a few months ago, our little family was able to spend a whole day together at Epcot in Orlando, FL. There is a new ride there called "Soarin."  It's incredible.  You are strapped into a seat resembling an airline seat and "flown" out over an open space with one of those 360 screens all around you.  Above, below, all sides.....you feel as if you are thousands of feet above the earth.  As you "fly," the wind blows your hair...you smell the oranges over the Napa valley, you smell the salty sea as you fly high above the surfers and cliffs...you see where the desert meets the mountains and can measure the distance between the dry, parched earth and the snow-capped peaks.  The experience is incredibly exhilarating--we waited in line to do it TWICE.  The fear of crashing into the cold Hudson River or the Atlantic or Pacific or the orange groves is simply not there.  The only fear is that one won't be able to see it all or will miss the smells or an incredible vista.  

I thought of all that this morning as God and I were discussing a few things.  

Fear limits our vision.  We can't see the forest for the trees.  We focus on the individual issues.  We choose not to look at the expansive vistas because we're overwhelmed that we will crash into the landscape.

But that perfect love thing....if we truly feel safe, we allow ourselves to let go.  We look beyond the obvious, we allow ourselves to smell the aromas, we see the possibilities of snow even though dry, cracked earth is what is closest to us.

It's Monday where I live...a gray, cold, tired day....and I've decided it's a perfect day to fly. 

BOTT's over

Well, BOTT is over for 2009.  The expectation of Monday has given way to the exhaustion of Friday.  The anticipation energy of Monday has given way to the "it was, it is, it's over" total lack of energy of Friday.  Some are traveling home, some are waiting to travel in the next few days.  Some are dreading returning, some can't wait to return.  Regardless of the mindset, anyone who attended feels differently both mentally and physically today than they did on Monday.

What about you?  An entire week of your life that you will never recover has almost faded into oblivion?  What did you hear?  What did you feel?  What did you experience?  Those are the obvious questions.  The deeper question is: What will you do with all of those feelings, those revelations, those moments with God and fellow travelers?

What spoke to you?  And what are you saying back?

Friends

Last night, a milestone birthday of a friend brought together a group of us who have known each other for years but whose roads have diverged and the paths now very seldom cross. What a wonderful time it was. Lots of laughter, lots of reflection and reminiscing, lots of thankfulness for our connection. . .

As the laughter rang around the table, we talked about good times and some of the times we would rather forget. We talked about how confused we are over where the years have gone and a little of the fear of how fast time is passing. We talked about all the elements that have made our lives sweet. The group was as varied and diverse as the foliage in the forest, but the diversity wasn't even considered as we mused about the past and laughed over the present and wondered about the future.

We realized that what had drawn us together in the first place was being so often together at the same events throughout our youth and early adulthood. But somewhere through the years, we had shared this one's worry over a child, or shared this one's sorrow over a death, or shared this one's anxiety over a family trial. And we realized that somehow along the way the commonality of the same events that had first drawn us together had given way to a deeper bond of love that time nor distance nor diverging paths would ever break.

At the head of the table, T F Tenney smiled as someone quoted what he often says: "You can make old 'new friends', but you can't make new 'old friends'."

Quest Miles

OnePass Miles.  Sky Miles.  WorldPerks Miles.  If you fly frequently, you try to get as many as you can.  The more you get, the better your air travel rewards. 

Such is the basis for the KingdomQuest Ministries blog.  

We're out to obtain Quest Miles.  Every place we visit, each group with whom we have an opportunity to share the Good News, each person we meet personally or through the web along the way, each experience we share...these all add more Quest Miles to our account.  And the more miles we have, the better our rewards along the journey.

As Terry often says, we're all on a quest to reach a kingdom.  But whose Kingdom?  Yours or His? That is a question only you can answer.

None of us have all the answers.  But we can get much farther together than we can alone. Thank you for checking in with us at KingdomQuest Ministries.  Check back often and let us enjoy the journey together as we obtain Quest Miles...

mbs