I just got home from saying goodbye to one of our relief interns. He is in the reserves and his unit was called up to Iraq. We stuffed ourselves with great Chinese food and a suprisingly good cake decorated with a flag from Winn-Dixie. It was a time to honor and pray for Mike. I've really enjoyed having Mike in New Orleans, there are neat things I see in his life, in his response to going to war and in his character that I admire. He's a great guy but I didn't have any deep, bonding moments with Mike this past year. Yet still as I sat on the floor in the living room of the house and prayed for him, I couldn't help but weep. Here's another young man whose life will be touched by the ugliness of war. I said my goodbye and walked out the door of their house thinking "this is not the way life should be". As I turned the corner, I saw the paint on the house - a visual reminder of the water line that was at least 6 feet high after Katrina. I looked around a neighborhood that was obviously struggling - with piles of trash in the street and kids who were dealing drugs huddled on their porches. I started thinking about a conversation that our team had earlier that day. Chip, from our national team, was talking about the Kingdom of God. Jesus said, "the Kingdom of God is at hand". He ushered in the Kingdom, but we still don't live in the fulness of the Kingdom - that will only happen someday when Christ comes again. To think that the Kingdom of God is now and is also not yet is such a difficult tension.

Earlier today I was on the Riverwalk. I was listening to my ipod and looking out over the Mississippi as the sun was shining, the wind was gently blowing and the trees were blooming all around me. I remember thinking, "this is such a beautiful world - it's so easy to see God alive and active in this world. It's so easy to know he loves me and loves this city at this moment". How can I feel such hope at 9 in the morning and then just 12 hours later experience such despair - such a sense of the world being so broken....so empty and so seemingly without God.

So today, I am struggling with what it means to live in the Kingdom. To live in the 'now but not yet' of being a follower of Christ. What will it mean for Mike to experience the Kingdom of God in Iraq but also experience the horror of war? What will it mean for me to experience the Kingdom of God in this city that I have grown to love but to not ignore it's ugliness and brokenness? An even bigger question for me is probably, what will it mean for me to actively be a part of bringing the Kingdom of God to the world around me? Not in ways that are neat or ways that I can control, but in ways that I know the presence of God has indeed shown up?