The Gospel in Everything

It’s finally sinking in, or at least I hope. I no longer have to blindly grope in the dark for some shadow of the Kingdom breaking in. I may not understand it fully, but maybe by the grace of God, I’m beginning to get it: What Travis meant by seeing the gospel in the end of a cigarette. What Liza meant by the redemption radiating from the table at Panera, the healing in relationships.

Do I really get it? Do I really get to begin tasting it? The beauty of reality is slowly beginning to hit. Gradually, like the condensation slowly forming on a towel enveloped constantly by steam as it seeps in and eventually it becomes wet. Not all at once, because maybe that’s not the nature of life. Not all at once because it may crush with the power and sheer magnitude of beauty and truth crying out from every facet of life. So slowly. I will continue seeking and simmering as the sum of reality slowly saturates my being, as it seeps in. Like they slowly pour the milk foam into a mocha, the slowness making it all the more beautiful, creating the perfect lines and warming designs that characterize the cup. If it were dumped right in, it’d be all muddy and messed up, not as stunning as it should be, as it would be if it were done right: slowly. As much as I hate it, I’m beginning to appreciate it, savor it, recognizing the radiance and radical beauty reality produces when it percolates slowly. Ruminating grows into reality.

Everything present in this life some way reflects God’s perfect reality, a glimpse of what should be. It astounds me. No wonder they use certain words in the Bible, certain metaphors for what God’s kingdom breaking in is and how life is and will be restored. So let me explore this beautiful depth. Like a diver daring to dive into the uttermost depths of the darkness, dying to see what the presence of light begets, revealing a radiant beauty most are terrified to travel to that depth to see. And with due cause, for without the light, the darkness presses in and depresses even the most vibrant of lives, draining the daring determination of any who survive.

But not so with the Light. Its presence presents life in an entirely new way. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not over come it. The darkness has no choice than to succumb to the perfect revealing power of the light, exposing things as they are, scars and all, but also exposing how redemptions is reflections in some way or another through it. Beloved and lover. Child and Mother. Sister and brother. Each present in broken relationship now, but never robbed of the reflection it represents of the Kingdom of God. To him the darkness is not dark at all.

For so long it’s all I’ve seen: the presence of darkness and brokenness and the absence of light. But that’s not true reality. Reality is the light breaking in with power and restoration. And now that I can slightly see, with glimpses, as a small child peering through a sheet, I pray for eyes to see and grace to take part in ushering in this Kingdom, in all its glory.