4 Truths to Dwell on Until His Kingdom Comes

It feels like our world is in upheaval.

I’m old enough to be able to look back over the decades and see what feels like a rising flood of tension, hatred, and love of self and sin that is now spilling over in our world today. As time passes, I’ve grown more unsettled with it all. But after the events of the last few weeks and months, I finally felt the dam in my heart break.

Through tears, I said to my husband one evening, “I get it now. I understand the longing and the heart cry of ‘Come, Lord Jesus!’”

In my feeble and frail humanity, I’ve grown tired of this world. Not simply the acceptance of sin, but the open celebration of it, sickens me.

I told my husband that while I’ve looked forward to Heaven, that longing has always had an asterisk above it. ​

I want Jesus to return, but not just yet. Come, Lord Jesus, but could you wait until . . . 

• I get married? 
• we have children? 
• we buy a house?
• we watch our child grow up? 
• we have certain experiences that we’ve always hoped for?

But now, I feel like God has taken the blinders off. This world, even its best experiences and pleasures, can offer me nothing remotely close to the glory of God and the joy of His Kingdom. For the first time in my life, I feel that I can finally hear creation groaning, and now I am too. ​

“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now. And not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits—we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” Romans 8:22-23

For me, this shift has forced me to answer a question. In fact, I think it is THE question all believers need to constantly be asking: Whose kingdom am I longing for?

I was born in the 1980s and grew up in what could arguably be said it one of America’s most prosperous and peaceful times. My grandparents were from the greatest generation — they fought in World War II and passed down a legacy of hard work, sacrifice, love of family, and commitment to Christ. I know the bliss of living pre-internet and smartphones, where we connected with people face to face. Learning and research took painstaking but worthwhile effort because you had to read whole books or spend time talking with someone older and wiser than you who had lived through it and could tell the tale. 

I know every generation looks back and romanticizes what used to be, and I guess I’ve become no different. But my point is this, I think we all assume that our “good ol’ days” are the way it will always be — that this is the way it is supposed to be. We take the kindness of God in granting us these days as a surety or an entitlement. And then, when the world shifts, when the grip of sin and suffering in this world tightens as Scripture has told us it will (Matthew 24:9-14), we are shocked, confused, and upended. 

For me, it has revealed a divided heart — a heart that looks forward to God’s Kingdom but is also busy building another. This Kingdom is dressed in clothes of faith, love, and goodness, but underneath its framework shows a heart that wants a life of ease and peace that isn’t what God promised and can’t truly exist in our sin-cursed world. 

I think that one of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis, captures the truth here best by saying, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

The fact that the little kingdoms that we build here on earth are so fragile and easily overturned is proof that we weren’t made for this world. The joy, security, peace, and belonging we crave will only be experienced in true fullness in His eternal Kingdom. ​

So, what is to be done here and now? Here are the truths I’m dwelling on. 

1. As a follower of Christ, I can and should stand for biblical truth without placing my hope in a worldly system. My identity in Christ is above all other allegiances. This means I must act justly and compassionately in the world while remembering that my ultimate hope and citizenship belong to God's eternal Kingdom.
2. I must remember my primary call as a believer is to make disciples for Christ (Matthew 28:19-20). I must remember that the world’s greatest need is not political but spiritual. People need the Gospel. They need, as one old adage says, for “one beggar to tell another beggar where to find bread.” Therefore, I must pour my energy into both sharing and living the Gospel. I must focus on faithfully serving my family, my church, and my community, using my ordinary life to bring glory to God, trusting that He can do extraordinary things through those who are willing to follow Him. 
3. I need to realize that what is best for God’s Kingdom will not always be what is best according to me. Maybe what is best for my country, my family, and myself is that we suffer — that all the things we hang our hope on outside of Christ are stripped away and only He remains. It doesn’t mean I cease being a responsible citizen or roll over and stop standing for truth, but if and when the time comes that such a reality exists, my hope in Christ remains unmoved, and my heart will say, “Your will be done.”
4. Find comfort and security in knowing God’s plans and His Kingdom can never be thwarted. We are to toil and work for the Kingdom of God, but Friend, what a glorious truth to know it doesn’t depend on us. God has already won the battle. Just as sure as His promises are always fulfilled, so are His plans. 

• "I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” Job 42:2
• "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails.” Proverbs 19:21 
• "The Lord of Hosts [Jehovah Sabaoth] has purposed, and who can annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?” Isaiah 14:27 
• “You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result.” Genesis 50:20

If you’ve ever read The Lord Of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien or even watched the film adaptation, you will know the scene where Frodo, a hobbit tasked with destroying a ring that could doom all of Middle-earth, laments to his friend and mentor Gandalf how burdened he is to be living in such dark times. With great sadness, he tells Gandalf, “I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.” Gandalf compassionately and wisely replies, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” 

We do not get to choose the times in which we live in this fallen world. Neither did the apostles who were willing to and did die for the furtherance of the Gospel. Neither did the reformers who were martyred for their faith. Neither did the over 52,000 Nigerian Christians who have recently been murdered and had more than 18,000 of their churches destroyed. But God does allow us to choose what we will do in such times. 

Will we be upended, confused, and made ineffective by the chaos of this world, or will our hope in His kingdom help us to remain unshaken? Will we persist in our primary mission to both share and live out the Gospel, or will we give greater allegiance to what the world perceives as social justice or “preserving our way of life.” 

This is not easy. We will always wrestle with the tension of living in this present world and waiting for His Kingdom. But God has called us to it, and so we must. This world is not it. It is only the preface to eternity, and we would do well to remember that. 

In recent days, there has been a song that has brought me much comfort as I continue to wrestle through all of this. The last verse, especially, has helped me to align my heart with what it is I am truly longing for and will one day no longer be faith, but sight. 

There’s a dawning hope before us
That I know is soon to break
As I wait upon Your mercy
Which will swallow every ache
Cries of joy and songs of victory
When we enter Heaven’s gates
All Your children are home together
All with You, the God of grace

Dear Friend, let us not grow weary as we press on. It is so easy to despair as we look around and see the hate, the sin, the chaos, the mess. But we have hope. Don’t lose heart and don’t be distracted by lesser things. He is coming back! He will make all things right! He will take us with Him to glory and “so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17)! His Kingdom is coming! So work with faith, wait with hope, and pray each day “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done!”

What “kingdom” are you building with your time, energy, and hope—the fragile one of this world or the unshakable one that belongs to Christ, and how might your perspective change if your deepest longing was truly for His Kingdom to come?