It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough. It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air perched in its branches…It is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field…

Originally posted as “this beautiful, convoluted mess” on February 20, 2006.

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been one year today since I started this blog…it’s really amazing to look back over this past year and remember all the events that took place, both big and small, and to see how things have changed, how I have changed and have been surprised by the many unexpected blessings – some in the form of bumps – along the way. Not that I have blogged about all the nitty gritty details, struggles, and irreverent thoughts…afterall, keeping a “journal” online is kind of like splicing yourself on the microscope slide and inviting everyone to observe with as much magnification and anonymity as they prefer. (And I actually have more control over myself in this form of expression. Don’t believe me? The other day at the ‘Bucks, a well-dressed man came in who had a seemingly unfitting pin of a skull and crossbones on his lapel. Before I could stop myself, I couldn’t help but ask him, “Are you a pirate?” He just looked confused for a moment, and I realized, a bit too late, that maybe he wouldn’t see the humor in it, but I pointed to his pin questioningly. No, it was a society of some sort that he belonged to. My co-workers had fun with that for the rest of the day.) But at least I can read between the lines and the stories that I have documented on my blog to remember the other side of things, and most importantly, to see the hand of God so faithfully at work in my life, and the lives of those around me, even at those times when my heart is far from him…and hopefully I have been able to communicate this to all those who have happened to stumble across my blog as well.

In a sense, blogging sort of reminds me of scripture…that may sound a bit out there, but listen to what I mean: God could have chosen to work in a vacuum devoid of time or space or humanity. But he didn’t. He chose to work with us and through us…to communicate his message in a very relevant and timely fashion through culture and language and hardship and suffering and good times and bad…this beautiful mess called life.

Of course, the Bible is now a nicely bound book, but to think of how God inspired his word to be written over thousands of years, by hundreds of writers, in countless cultural and historical contexts…and messiness…well, it’s just a beautiful and miraculous thing…and it’s even more amazing that our lives are now a part of that story of redemption. So as we write, and as we read and interact with each other through our modern convention of cyberspace, we get a glimpse of the hand of God in our lives, documented across the world in real time. Of course that does not make our blogging the inspired, infallible Word of God, but it does show us that he is still at work, yet in the nitty-grittiness of our lives. Blogging is rooted in history, in humanness, in…well, mess. We don’t know what will happen from one day to the next and we often get things mixed up. But it’s a mess wherein God reveals himself through our hopelessly imperfect lives. My goodness, there are some things I blogged about that I wish I could go back and change, or some comments that I generated I wish I could erase, but that’s life, and as our lives unfold as such within the grander scheme of God’s kingdom, that’s basilea.

In the Greek, basilea means “kingdom” and is used in reference to the “kingdom of heaven” or the “kingdom of God” in the gospels, a theme that Jesus often spoke on, trying to get the attention of those around him, that they might understand it not as something which could be attained by human means, yet as something for which we were created. It’s his free gift of grace…yet it will cost us our lives…yet it is so worth it. This is the paradox and the joy of basilea. It comes surprisingly and unexpectedly, to people of all colors and cultures and walks of life…and messiness is the medium by which it comes. I hope that as I continue this blog in the years to come, that somehow my writing will be an instrument to see “your kingdom come,” even when it’s hopelessly obvious that I don’t have everything figured out.