Back in 2004, somewhere between Richmond and Rocky Mount on interstate 95 the Holy Spirit interrupted my thoughts: “You know, son, that if your world became smaller when you ‘got saved,’ then you really didn’t receive the kingdom. You just got religion.”
Nailed by the Spirit! It’s a sad fact that nearly twenty years of my life were spent in an eclipse of sorts, when I relegated practically all my “worldly” music, books, and social life, along with my interest in anything that couldn’t be found in a church building to a mythical wasteland of “secularism.” I thought I was pleasing a God who took little interest in the world around me; a God who hung around church buildings despairing of the world, and waiting impatiently to launch the only truly important event yet to come: the Return of Jesus.
The Kingdom has changed all of that now. Life is no longer a waiting room. It’s an adventure of epic proportions, and Jesus is surprising me everywhere I look. We’re not just saved from sin. We’re saved to the kingdom.
Goodness! There’s so much about this churning in my heart this morning. But the adventure is calling me. “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
Stay tuned!
Dispatches from the Shadowlands 
As I reflect on my own journey in light of the thoughts you shared it is clear to me that I initially encountered the reality of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God at the time of my conversion and was subsequently led deeper into religion. My world becamse very narrow… “narrow is the way” became “narrow is the mind”. I am learning that there is a world of difference between the two!
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