An Instructive Moment About God's Kingdom

"It starts with a little lump of grace hidden within us. And slowly, silently, it permeates our life; lifts it, transforms it."

"Heart by Heart, that's the way the kingdom of God grew. Quietly reaching for the sun. Spreading throughout history so people from every tribe and nation could one day roost in its branches."

"A Mary. A Martha. An old woman with a bent-over back. Expanding, impreceptibly, like a loaf of rising dough...and filling the world with the aroma of freshly baked bread. "

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I really don't know what to say that could possibly mean more than these three statements that Gire came up with - I really don't. For all the stuff he wrote in this book that we all questioned as far as it being scripturally correct, you can't dispute the truth of these three statements.

The first one: "It starts with a little lump of grace hidden within us..." I read that and my heart skipped a beat. (Skipped a beat!) That is exactly how it felt to me. Like, at one point, He slid a lump of grace inside of me and then stood back and waited. Waiting for the darn thing to take root like the mustard seed. Waited for it to get watered on by my tears. Waiting on it to fall on fertile soil and take nourishment from my body. Waited for the lump of grace that I did not earn but got anyway to take hold and choke off all the crap that Satan had been feeding me and that I had been lapping up like a puppy to his mother's teet. It did take root - finally. It did permeate my life. It DID transform me.

The second one: "Heart by Heart, that's the way the kingdom of God grew." Well, of course it did. Because the currency that God deals in is not that of spices or grain or money - but in human hearts. He grew his kingdom the way we grow our 401K's or our stock portfolios. He took a little and turned it into many. One here, one there; building layer upon layer, member upon member. And why did it keep growing so sucessfully? Because when something is right, you know it. People didn't hear Jesus speak or watch him perform his miracles and then go home and say, "Nah...I'm not buying it." They realized its worth and they never looked back.

And the third one: "A Mary. A Martha. An old woman with a bent over back." I instantly changed the wording in my head mid-sentence...

An Addie. A Claire Joy. A Julie and a Claire. Filling the world with the aroma of freshly baking bread. I only have one more thing to say...

You all bring out the yeast in me - and I couldn't love you more.