Build Your Kingdom Here

Rend Collective Experiment has a song called Build Your Kingdom Here (which I listen to on a daily basis because it's my jam), and I've been doing some thinking on the lyrics. I thought of a scenario where a church was wanting to remodel their building to make room for a new youth room or office or children's ministry room or whatever. They call a contractor and discuss where they want the room and how big it should be, the cost, etc. The contractor and the church agree, and the next day the contractor shows up with his workers and starts tearing down walls and ripping up floors, removing pillars and building new walls, when the pastor runs in and screams at them to stop immediately. "What do you think you're doing? This is my church! I asked you to build a new room, not mess up my church! Look at this wreck! How are we going to have service on Sunday? What will people think?"


The contractor and workers stare. I bet you can imagine what they're thinking. You can't build anything without changing things a little. They were tearing down walls and ripping up floors so they could make room for the new space. It wouldn't be possible to build the new room without making changes.


Now take yourself out of the scenario, and put yourself in your own life. I see a church that says to God, "Build Your Kingdom Here!" but then freaks out whenever He tries to make changes. I have seen it in my own life more times than I care to remember. I ask Him to be my entire life, to manifest Himself in my life and establish His kingdom on earth through me, but when He starts to make changes in me to do just that, I kick and scream and protest. "What are you doing?!? I like that sin! It's too hard and uncomfortable to give it up!" I ignore that He has to make changes in order to build anything. I ignore that any change inevitably makes a little bit of a mess before things start to get better. But in the end, it's worth it. He's worth it. He is always worth it.