What Does It Mean to Strive?

²⁵And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? ²⁶If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest?…..³¹Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.(Lk.12)

“What does it mean to “strive” for the kingdom of God?

Paul answers that question pretty well:

4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. ⁵Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. ⁶Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.(Phil. 4)

Luke 12 give us the well known passages about not worrying — not being afraid or anxious.  Good words for today’s snuggling world; in-which many of our world’s population has great concern about what is happening all around us. 

The questions I hear are:  “Where is God.”  “Why doesn’t He do something about it?”  Or, the big one: “If God were real, things like this wouldn’t happen.”

It must be something like what the disciples were feeling, as they stood helplessly silent, on Good Friday.  Totally defeated and disillusioned.

So the question remains. “What does it mean to “strive” for the kingdom is God?  And, by the way, how do we strive?”  When we are not at all sure what exactly His kingdom is like.  We also don’t have any imagination to match the images we have been given.  

We have been told that God’s Kingdom is like yeast that spreads out and expands allowing for the possibility of more.  

That God’s kingdom is like people who give every effort to find whats lost. 

Or, like a tiny seed that grows into a big tree that welcomes all to rest in its branches.

Or, that eternal life — heaven — is like streets made of gold and where angels sing and everyone is kind, and loving, and peace reigns.

Where do we start?  

How in the world do we “strive” for that?

As is common, in the theological world, we have been misled by poor exegesis and flawed interpretation. 

It was on one particular busy day, in the seminary lunch room, that I read something that turn all the lights on high beam. 

³And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 

“That they may know.”

The Kingdom of God is right here and right now on this earth today.  It is not a place or time really.  It lives in the hearts and mind of all God’s children.

And Jesus left that truth to us to live out in all the messiness we find ourselves in.  Through are our faith, and trust. in who Jesus is — God.

Our faith plus our knowledge of what Jesus taught, and how Jesus interacted with others, is how we “strive.”  

That my friend is not a simple task.  

However if, with our tiniest of faith, we remember what Jesus said and left us with — The Holy Spirit to guide us.

If we take time to listen to His Spirit.  We will remember that we are not alone in the call to strive — move in faith that God is.

It is also helpful to remember that Jesus did not use force, nor threats, when confronted with the Pharisees of the world.  He also didn’t pretend not to care about the way they acted or thought.

What He did so well was walk among them with humble integrity.  Telling stories with meaningful content.  Trying to help them see the error of their ways.  

But ultimately it was their choice to follow or not.

It is not the ‘doing’ that is the strive.  

It is first the faith and trust in God’s active presence in our lives and in our world.

The rest is in God’s hands.  

And that is the tug for we who do not see the entire picture of history.

‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life,