Embracing Goodness

Last Sunday at VLC we were honored to have Josh Pinkston share with us a message of a spirituality of presence. The key phrase in his talk was “The kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21) Though I wholeheartedly embrace this concept, I admit it is difficult for me to envision it in my life. The main reason is that I have a hard time seeing the good in me, others, and the world around me.

I read a devotional from Richard Rohr a few days ago that addresses this difficulty.

We are not so at home with the resurrected form of things, despite a yearly springtime, healings in our bodies, the ten thousand forms of newness in every event and every life. The death side of things grabs our imagination and fascinates us as fear and negativity always do, I am sad to say. We have to be taught how to look for anything infinite, positive, or good, which for some reason is much more difficult.

We have spent centuries of philosophy trying to solve “the problem of evil,” yet I believe the much more confounding and astounding issue is “the problem of good.” How do we account for so much gratuitous and sheer goodness in this world? Tackling this problem would achieve much better results.

This is something I have been meditating on quite a bit lately, particularly on reducing blame, alienation, and separation.

Embracing goodness enables us to turn toward others instead of against or away from them, something Jesus seemed to be really good at. This will always be a work in progress, but I trust that if we take Jesus at his word and follow his example we can begin to see and connect with the kingdom of God in those around us.

Grace and peace,
Brook

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