What Hail's Got (page 6)

There's more.

I want to come to this point in my walk with God where I find the kingdom of heaven - whatever that means, whether it is God being faithful to me in the most secret way.  Take for instance my laying in an ICU hospital bed after a 10-hour surgery not able to speak because of the tracheotomy, but listening to the words:

"Heavenly Father

You always amaze me

Let your kingdom come

In my world and in my life

You give me the food I need

To live through the day..."

It played stuck on repeat on a mix CD Sorrel made for me.  And I was singing.  No one could hear me, but I was singing.  I'd fall asleep to that song.  I couldn't move.  Cords and wires came out of my feet, my arms, my neck.  I couldn't breathe on my own.  For those two days I couldn't live by my own body sustaining me autonomous of modern medical marvels. And to this day I cannot remember those alarm-flooded hours, the medically-induced insomnia set on 45-minute cycles because of routine skin graft checks. Then there was the first thing I scribbled on paper to mom:

"I want to go home."

She probably held back her tears and said something like, "I know baby, I know, but you have to stay here for a little while and get better." 

What I do remember is God.  God sustaining me.  God getting me through.  God being my peace.  God being there while I took the punches; God being there.  I know He was there and I noticed Him through Jon Foreman's lyrics: "Your love is strong."

Or maybe the kingdom of heaven can be viewed in simpler terms.  Maybe it's in those dance party moments when you're in the car alone rocking out, singing along even if you don't know half the lyrics. And just going all crazy-like not caring what other people will think because you're having a good time and that's all that matters.

Really, I don't know what the kingdom of heaven is. But for some reason it is enticing me to go in search of it.  Even if I already hold the kingdom of heaven in the palm of my hand, there is something inside of me begging, calling, pulling, yanking - I mean, this thing is not letting me go to sleep at night without similar words to, "Lord, let me discover Your treasure more than I already know," slip out of my mouth.

Because, I may have found the kingdom of heaven, but I have not yet covered it up, sold all that I own with joy, and bought the plot of land where I found that heavenly gem.   And this is the point I want to come to in my walk with the Lord; in pursuit of the Divine; in other words, in life.

I'm not content in the relationship I have with our Divine Intimate.  You might think this is foolish of me, but I think man is the fool if he doesn't look up to the stars and then want to travel among them. That journey from Point A - man staring at the celestial - to Point B - man shooting dogs and astronauts up out of our atmosphere into unknown regions of space - may take centuries, as it did, but time should be of no importance when it comes to discovering a treasure of heavenly proportions.  And I'm talking about discovering it down to its very core.  I mean, getting all the questions answered; knowing intimacy, knowing it to its deepest depths. And then I'm talking about unleashing the unknown and indescribable into a world of geometries and calculated probabilities.  World wide telecasts will ensue because this may be the greatest discovery of all human time: 

A God who sent his only son to be the propitiation for our sins so that we might know love thus enabling us to live through a divine love in order, naturally, to love one another.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.  In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the world, so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God, if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. (1 John 4:7-16)