Kingdom-Minded

Lately, it seems God is really showing me the value of His Kingdom, that my focus needs to be on the Kingdom. I will admit that this school year has not be the best. With its ups and downs, it's felt sufficient, but hasn't been the "blast" that I was expecting. Friends from last year have graduated, and I was trying to find my place in this drastically different semester. My thoughts about Oregon, home, were hindering me from progressing where I was, San Diego. I couldn't find a routine and just found it hard to adapt to the Loma lifestyle. It was so different. At home, although all my friends lived far apart, we all still hung out and basically counted on each other being able to hang out. At Loma, everyone is super close (geographically), giving them a plethora of people to hang out with, and for some reason, I was having a hard time getting into the swing of that, different dynamics.

Being from Oregon where there's beautiful natural scenery and coming to San Diego where there's city beauty just didn't click well for me. The hills, the mountains, the snow, the lakes, etc. They were home. That's where my beauty was. I couldn't see the beauty in the ocean anymore. Beyond the ocean and it's sunsets, there was nothing. At a lake in oregon, you have the massive body of water with some trees and maybe a mountain in the background as well as the sunset. I found that beautiful. Oregon had the colors of fall and the redemption of rain. Beauty. In one of my recent posts, What a Beautiful God.. , I wrote about beauty, leading from the beauty of nature to the beauty of God's nature toward us, His people. I've realized that God has beauty all over, but I was too "homesick" to realize the beauty that was around me.

On Sunday at Flood, my church in San Diego, Pastor Matt mentioned contentment then went into this message about generosity/giving. As he spoke about contentment, I realized how ungrateful I've been at times, thinking about all these if only's. Although I may not see its beauty at times, I'm blessed have a view of the ocean everyday. Although I love the rain at times, I'm blessed to have weather to play outside in everyday. Although I may feel out of place at times, I forget God led me here for a reason, but I've forgotten His faithfulness.

Recently, a really good friend of mine down here, who just so happens to also be from Oregon, had a good talk last week about Loma, and it made me realize something: I need to "Just GO!" By go I don't mean "to leave" but rather do something for God's Kingdom. Just do something when I feel the Spirit leads. Whether it's talk to a certain person or pray for an individual (not necessarily directly) or whatever else, just go. My purpose in God is for the Kingdom. I'm a child of God, so I gotta live out of that truth and do some Kingdom work. The nonessentials will fall into place after that.