Found myself last night feeling saddened at the many stories (including my own) that I have been running into lately of people doing a lot of activity, but not living in the reality of Kingdom now or their belovedness. But the restlessness we feel for the that experience is only a confirmation that we have tasted it and are on the journey for more, not that we are empty and void of it.

St. Augustine said, "My soul is restless until it rests in you, O God." All the impulses and idols of the world keep us in the restless stage, never satisfying. Offering us only pain and decay, not satisfaction. Nouwen continues, "I know that the fact that I am always searching for God, always yearning for the complete truth, tells me that I have already been given a taste of God, of Love, and of Truth. I can only look for something that I have, to some degree, already found." (Life of the Beloved)

These stories I am hearing are of those who are still looking for life's answers outside of themselves. The grass must be greener in a pasture just around the corner. My next job, my next accomplishment, when I lose the weight, when I finally graduate, when I meet that special someone, when I get that promotion, when the house is completed, when my kids grow up, when I finally stop my addiction etc. etc. The answer in living in complete contentment of our belovedness is to come home. Stop running to the things outside of yourself and looking for life in things that are fleeting and dead. Just come home. Inside of you, if you are quiet enough, lives and indwells the Spirit of Christ. In fact all the so called prophets looking for end times signs at the building of a new Temple in Jerusalem are full of crap. In you and I, within our very souls, is being built the New Jerusalem. The city of peace dwells within us. When we stop, slow down and listen for that voice within, telling us that we are his son/daughter, with whom his favor rests, that Temple is being built brick by brick.

So be encouraged today, the fact that you yearn for that peace and contentment means that you've once tasted Kingdom Now and you would like some more. Stop and hear the voice of the Beloved within you today. Then watch as the rebuilding of Jerusalem becomes your very life.

peace,