Transcendent

I am going to admit something here.  It is going to make me sound a little crazy, but I am going to hope that at some point in time you may have been crazy like me too, or if not you won't judge.  Promise.  You can't read any further without accepting that term of agreement.

___ accept.

I've had insomnia this past week.  It is so unfortunate, because this week we did sleep training with Flint. He now sleeps for 11 hours, only waking up once to eat.  This is AMAZING compared to the three times a night he woke up before.  Finally, mommy can get some sleep.  Except I don't, because I can't sleep.

What is keeping me up at night?  This strange sense that something is going to go terribly- I mean off the charts- wrong.  I've just had the strangest sensation that we are on the brink of our family getting knocked over- like someone dying.  My mind also started to play with severe earthquake and end of the world disaster scenarios.  I was having a hard time turning it off, even during the day.  When we left the house a part of me was getting nervous that we didn't have gallons of water in the trunk.

I am not normally like this.

I could explain why, but it would take too long.  Let's just say this time of year has anniversaries of sad, insecure, grieving times and it feels like even now, in the present, people around me are having their worlds rocked on an almost daily basis.

But it's Easter.  Almost.  Today is Palm Sunday, and today I was reminded (in a great message) that next week is about the resurrection, but this week is all about God's kingdom.

Last week I just wasn't living in the kingdom of God.  I was anxious.  I was obsessed with safety.  I was preoccupied with where my 2 year old would go to kindergarten.  I was trying to make God speak to me specifically, to give me a vision for how to serve Him.  "Speak, God.  Speak!  Tell me how to obey, I will do it. [because I am so amazing]"

He has already spoken.

He wants me to love Him, to love everyone I look at in a humble, compassionate, unselfish way (Matthew 22:37-39).  He wants me to not be anxious, to trust Him and worry more about loving Him and this world than about having 5 gallons of bottled water in my trunk (Matthew 6:25-27).  He wants me to love my neighbors and my neighborhood instead of fantasizing about a bigger house in a better school district (Mark 12:33). If this week happens to hold the zombie apocalypse, I want to love those zombies, share my water, and praise God through the flames.  There is nothing to fear, wherever I am, He is already there (Psalm 139:7-12).

I was missing the point this week.  I was wrapped up in my own little world, which quite frankly was a sleepless, anxious, malcontent little place.  I don't want to live there any more.

It's Palm Sunday.  Welcome to Campbell, King Jesus.  My coat is on the ground, I'm waving my palm branch like crazy!!!  I get it.  Your kingdom come, YOUR will be done.  I want to follow you, I want to live in your kingdom.  It's transcendent.  It's not dependent on my health, my family's safety, or the absence of anything going wrong.  It's just following you, loving others, and not personally being the center of my own universe.  I'm in.

Hebrews 12:28 "Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe."

Romans 14:17 "for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit."

Psalm 139:7-12 (The Message)
Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you’re there!
If I go underground, you’re there!
If I flew on morning’s wings
to the far western horizon,
You’d find me in a minute—
you’re already there waiting!
Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
At night I’m immersed in the light!”
It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you;
night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.

Well, Lord. Wasn't I so Holy, demanding you to speak to me? To give me a vision for your kingdom?  Your kingdom, which you have already so plainly explained.  All in the midst of my perspective being so far off of your reality, I could not even hear your most simple words.  Bring me back.  Not to your power to protect me, bless me, guide me, comfort me, grow me...simply to your power.  Simply to you.  You are sovereign God.  I hand my anxieties, my fears, my expectations all to you.  Not to deal with each in a godly manner, but to surrender them all to your kingdom, your plan, YOUR vision for the world.  I do not need a powerful vision, God, for my place in your plan.  I will wait humbly, love, trust, and obey.  I will seek your face, your kingdom, and all that transcends my simple and sometimes dark reality.  All for you, Jesus.  King Jesus.  Hosanna in the highest.