the bigness and smallness of the Kingdom

Tonight I found myself talking with my oldest son in our kitchen about the reality of the Kingdom of God. I want him to understand at an early age how big God's Kingdom is and how he gets to participate in God's work wherever God is present. So here I was talking with a little boy about this huge idea that many brillant theologians, let alone me, have a difficult time explaining in a clear and brief explanation. In fact, Jesus only tells stories about the Kingdom because it is so hard to explain and understand. Stories help illustrate the beautiful mess that the Kingdom is.

I tried to explain how big God's Kingdom is by raising my arms as high as I could and said, "The Kingdom of God is bigger than Daddy." I didn't see it click in his eyes, so I pointed at our house (or the walls of our kitchen) and raised my voice (slightly) and said, "It's bigger than our house!" Again, I didn't see it click so I stretched my arms out as far as I could stretch, raised my voice again and said, "It's bigger than Legoland!!" By the way, he had just gone to his favorite place on earth (atleast for the moment). His eyes got real big and he had a huge smile on his face like he understood.

May we be people that learn to communicate the Kingdom of God through story...our story, God's story and even stories that little boys can understand.