Episode #317 God’s Quiet Work – Everyday Awake

Sometimes I want God to move with fireworks. Big obvious, impossible to miss moments. I want clear answers and closed doors with clearly opened ones and parted seas like how the Red Sea parted before Moses. But more often, my experience of God and his kingdom is that he moves like sunlight through window blinds. Slow, steady, and quiet enough to miss if I'm not paying attention. And when I actually stop to notice, I realize that God's work doesn't always announce itself, or at least not in the way we might think.

Jesus said it this way in Luke 17: 20-21, “Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

Earlier in Luke 13, Jesus compared God's kingdom to a mustard seed and to yeast. Small things that quietly change everything that they touch. I'll read for us, verses 20 and 21 of Luke 13.

“And again he said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.”

Yeast reminds us of an inner work. The "penetrating and assimilating quality of the Gospel" as one of my commentaries said. Yeast leavens the bread. It gets mixed all throughout, transforming it, making it better, letting it rise. But once it's mixed in, it can't be separated from the rest of the dough. All of the dough becomes leavened.

So when Jesus said these things to the disciples, people were looking for specific types of a visible kingdom. They thought it would come like human conquests did with soldiers and thrones and national power. They wanted to overthrow Rome who was oppressing them, and they expected God to bring his kingdom in that way and to restore Israel's glory by human standards. But Jesus said that the kingdom had already arrived. Not with armies, but with presence. Not in palaces, but in people.

Going back to Luke 17, the phrase “in your midst” can also mean “within you”. It's both personal and communal. " Nor will they say, look, here it is, or there for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you." (Luke 17:21 ESV)

God's reign begins in our hearts and quietly extends into the world around us through mercy and forgiveness and love. God's kingdom is at hand. It's not something we're waiting for. It's something we wake up to because he is already here. He is already moving.

One of the ways I love to think about this and participate in God's kingdom in this way is through the perspective of participation. Even the things that I'm doing to disciple my children. Or the things that I do in ministry, or when I sit down to prepare a podcast episode or a teaching, I am not starting a thing. I am joining God, who is already here and his kingdom which is already here, too. And I am joining in to participate in what God is already doing in the world.

And maybe that's something that God is doing in you right now. He is waking you up to how he is already at work in you and in your world, in ways that you might not have seen this way before. You might not see it all yet. The change, the fruit, the healing, the restoration, but the seed is alive. His spirit is working, even where your eyes can't reach.

And so the good news that I wanna share with you today is that you don't need to look for a headline to know that God is moving. You just need to look for him in the small things. The kind word you didn't feel like saying. The quiet conviction that redirected your day as you responded in obedience to what God was saying. The peace that showed up for no human reason.

The kingdom is hidden in plain sight and it's already in motion. The kingdom of God is here. May he help you notice the small sacred things in your day to day. So we're taking that idea and bringing it to God as a question to see what else he might want to share with each of us.

God, where is your kingdom quietly showing up in my life? Will you help me see one of the ways?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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