M3-S3: ORDERING OUR LITTLE KINGDOMS

SUMMARY

  • Ordering our kingdoms is at the core of our framework for spiritual formation.
  • Ordering our kingdoms is creation work under the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit.
  • Adding new habits to what we’re already doing is often the easiest path.
  • We stick with habits only long enough to determine if they are working. If not, adjust.
  • All positive change begins with love of God and loving those closest to us well.

SCRIPTURE FOCUS

Colossians 1:9-12

ORDERING OUR KINGDOMS

The next component of our framework is the regular practice of ordering our kingdoms toward God’s kingdom, beginning with our most important relationships. Last week, we took a look at the most significant relationships in our lives, what God is doing in our midst, how we are spending our time and resources, and maybe even hearing from God about very specific actions we need to take. What we did last week was reflection (“considering our kingdoms”).

This week is where we bring our desires, will, and actions into deeper alignment with the kingdom. This is a process of prayerful creation. As God directs and empowers us, we are bringing these relationships into the flows of grace offered by Jesus that make the kingdom of God the flourishing life that it is. In small steps, we put practices into place that help us to yield, to surrender, to speak life, to ask for what we need, to serve, to cherish, to love.

This week we are beginning the process of creating our framework—the rhythms and habits that will help us stay in the flow of what God is doing in our lives. These rhythms and habits serve to help us grow in our relationship with God and with the people God has placed in our life.

One of the easiest ways to put into place practices that stick is to attach them to things you are already doing. One example might be to add a prayer practice to the action of grabbing our morning coffee and taking it to our work desk in the morning. Expanding on rhythms we’ve already established makes establishing new practices much easier.

Not that anything we’re putting into place are somehow permanent. Rather, they are a dynamic attempt to stay in the flow of what God is doing, and we only stick with them if they are bringing about the fruit that God desires. That is to say, the small steps we’re taking are flexible and not necessarily permanent. We create them with God’s help for this time and situation that we are currently in. We can and will change them if they aren’t working or our situation changes.

Any framework we might use needs flexibility and fluidity so that we can adapt and change with our seasons of life. Our measure of success is simply to stay connected to God and the work he is doing in our lives, not that we perfectly live out our list of rhythms and practices. All of this is merely a humble attempt at faithfulness, there to support us in our walk with Jesus.

For the workshop component, we will focus on our first 2 tiers, which is our relationship with God and with our immediate family. Why these two tiers? Because if we don’t get the most important relationships settled first, then bringing others into the flow of God’s kingdom will be hindered by the difficulties we’ll face in the closer and deeper relationships. It’s hard to grow our relationships with our church family if we’re struggling with our children.

So let’s think together about what daily, weekly, or monthly practices we need to put in place as small steps to gently nudge these relationships more deeply into the flow of God’s kingdom?

Our homework is to pray more about these small steps and to attempt to implement the new rhythms; next week we will check in on how it is going (which is a form of weekly reflection!).