Already in Your Midst!

"The Kingdom of God is already in your midst." Luke 17:21

 

The feed on my Facebook wall is crazy. There are jokes about the name of the cemetery Marcos is to buried in, memes about Martial Law and the terrible things Marcos did, posts about how children are crying because Trump is the next President of the US, hysterics, jubilation, sadness, friends unfriending friends, calls for action, etc etc. It's amazingly noisy and busy, and reading through it gives me some kind of anxiety. What is the world coming to? Is the end of the world as we know it coming to an end? Are the sheeps and the goats being separated from each other (Mt.25:32)?

 

In Luke 17, Jesus is asked by some Pharisees when the reign of God would come. Perhaps some today wish that God would come down and reign over us. But that's not God's plan yet. Instead Jesus said His Kingdom is already in our midst! After all, Jesus said He would be wherever 2 or three of His people are gathered. He likened the Kingdom to leaven working in a batch of dough. Yeast is so tiny, but it works through dough and makes it rise. We too can be leaven working silently, quietly, steadily, in a world gone mad. We should watch our hearts, that we not succumb to anger, hopelessness, or like the trolls I see in so many posts, being quarrelsome and obnoxious! We should instead be a balm of peace, spreading kindness and hope.  But I think most of all, what the world needs now is prayer. Fervent, passionate, serious prayer. Let us go to war with prayer, because it's one of the most potent weapons the world has ever seen. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of! (Alfred Lord Tennyson)