Kingdoms

I was thinking the other day as I was blowing leaves in our yard and trying to listen to music on headphones.... the recurring thought of the warring kingdoms in the spiritual realm. One is God's Kingdom and the other is Satan's (known as "the enemy"). Simple enough. What strikes me is how much the world we witness today is in the center of this battle. Of course, we see with "earthly eyes" most of the time and cannot see into this other realm. However, if you look at the fallout of events that we can witness with our senses, you can see clear evidence of something going on.

Primarily, an attack is underway and has been underway for quite some time on the family unit. This isn't new knowledge and most likely will seem like a cliched statement to some. But, if we see that God Himself is deeply relational and exists in the family of the Trinity, you would deduce that the enemy would attack such a structure as a family here on earth (I refer to God as "Himself" only for the sake of a way to personify Him as a Being. Of course, God is neither male nor female, but spirit. However, because God is such a deeply relational Being, I refer to Him as a He. The other option, if one is trying to be politically correct, would be to call God, "He/She." However, this doesn't have that personal ring, but rather a more objective tone which defeats the purpose of personification. Imagine calling your Dad, "It," or your parents, "He/She"). In whatever form you see it --- divorce, child abuse, pornography, isolation --- these attacks are gutting the foundations of trust, security, and intimacy in the family. Satan is waging a full-on war against what God would have as one of the greatest blessings here on earth.

People are becoming increasingly isolated and unplugged from a community. There are communities, such as the ones you see online, and even something akin to this blog would be considered a type of community. However, the basic tenets of a healthy community --- trust, friendship, knowledge of another, close proximity --- only go so far with internet-born units of people. You can talk with someone via email or chat for years, but you might never know who they are if you were to pass them by in the airport in person. That face-to-face intimacy that we have with our neighbors, friends, and co-workers is so essential. Even something like that goes awry these days, as an angry co-worker will go into their place of employment and gun down people who might've thought they were just a "nice, quiet person who would never hurt anyone." Do we really know people anymore? Do we take time to know people and invest in them or are we too busy? Does our trust erode and paranoia rise with all this non-intimacy?

We need a massive sort of healing to move in a different direction. What will it be?