Minute Meditations

While our three year old granddaughter was visiting us from Canada, we asked her if she would like to go to Disneyland. Her reply was a quick ”no.” At her tender age, she did not know if Disneyland was a place, a food or a disease and, since she knew nothing about it, her response was negative. Since we were familiar with Disneyland, we concluded that she would like it even if she had said no, so we took her anyway, and she had an absolutely marvelous time.

We are all like our granddaughter in that we do not yearn for things we know nothing about. This is why so few people want to be in the Kingdom. How could they? The Kingdom is completely unfamiliar to them; how could they want it? We find young people especially have trouble making the Kingdom a real goal in their lives. If we view God’s reward for the righteous as sitting on a fluffy little cloud strumming a harp, we can easily sympathize with them, for this does seem to be a boring way to spend eternity.

The reason people do not want the Kingdom is because they do not understand what it will be like, just as our granddaughter had no desire to go to Disneyland since in her little mind she could not conceive what a fun place it really is. We all need to make the Kingdom real, because the more real it becomes to us, the more we will want to be in it, and the more we want to be in it, the harder we will try to follow the path that leads to it.

People do dream about places they want to visit. A person who wants to go to Hawaii will look at pictures of beautiful bays fringed with white sand and swaying palm trees. One that loves the mountains will gaze at pictures of towering snowcapped peaks rising above crystal blue lakes and grassy green meadows. In our mind’s eye we can travel to these places and dream of being there in person. This type of mental fantasy helps us to want to go there all the more and soon we find that we are planning to take our vacation at the very place about which we have been dreaming.

God gave us the ability to imagine, and like all of the other God-given gifts, we tend to use it in the wrong way. Soon after God had made man, He found that ”every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

Imagining evil things leads to sin and death. Jesus explained how we can commit murder and adultery by imagining these things in our heart. This is the trouble with the world today. They fantasize about evil things just as they did in the days of Noah when God destroyed them with the flood.

We need to take this ability to fantasize and use it for good. Let us begin to imagine how wonderful the Kingdom will be. Let us dream about it, clothe it with reality in our mind’s eye, and we will discover that we are being drawn to it in a most wonderful way. Paul tells us that ”Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” This is the reason so few people want the Kingdom; they haven’t seen it or heard it or imagined how great it will be. But we mustn’t stop reading Paul’s words, for the very next verse tells us, ”But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.” Yes, because we have our Bibles, we have God’s Spirit telling us how wonderful the Kingdom will be. Let us then read about it, think about it, dream about it, and soon we really will seek first the Kingdom of God. Since God made us, He certainly knows how to make us happy and the Kingdom is going to be the happiest and most wonderful thing that could ever happen to us. Dream about the Kingdom in living technicolor! Bro. Roberts did in his booklet ”The Final Consolation.” To him the Kingdom was real and wonderful. He pictured himself flying through the air; he listened with rapt attention as King David led a chorus in hymns of praise; he visited Abraham’s palace; he flew into the temple area and watched the arrival of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He described ”an electric spasm of joy” that ”mortal nerves could not stand.”

One of the most important things we can do is to use our imaginations to visualize the Kingdom in all its splendor. When the Kingdom becomes real to us, then we will. want it with all our being, and if we want it with all our being, then we will receive it, because Jesus has assured us that it is his Father’s good pleasure to give us the Kingdom.