Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: The Kingdom of God (03/12/09)
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TITLE: Zolphares, Shirtones, and Other Common Things | Previous Challenge Entry
By Gerald Shuler
03/19/09 -
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Sorry. I forgot to record. Let me begin again.
All I did was innocently thank God for giving me a complete understanding of His kingdom for my Sunday School lesson next Sunday. I was thanking Him. That’s all. And what does He do?
He sends an angel to straighten out my wrong thinking. One second I was praying like a good little Christian should and the next...
And then...
“Fear not, Casey Winthrop. The Lord has heard the desire of your heart.”
Huh? I wasn’t desiring any desires at the moment. I was just thanking God.
“You thanked him for complete understanding.”
Ummm.... yep.... as stated clearly, that’s what I had done
“Yet you still do not fully understand. It is a thing too great for carnal minds to envelope. I am here to give you a glimpse of what you will not comprehend.”
Somehow that didn’t sound like the most productive approach, but, who am I to say.
Suddenly I wasn’t in my office anymore. I was in my wife’s hobby room, looking at one of her 1/10 scale doll’s houses that she had just finished building. I looked at the angel and he just pointed to the little house. Okay. I played along. I looked at the doll’s house. It wasn’t quite finished, but still, it had an incredible realism. Every time I was passing by this room my wife would always grab me and have me look at her latest work of art, so, of course, seeing it now was something of a redundancy as far as heavenly revelations go. I’d already seen it.
“Do you see the Kingdom of God in this doll’s house?”
Huh? Okay, I just figured out how dense I must be. It was a doll’s house. It didn’t even have churchy things in it... not even a picture of Jesus on the wall. How was that like the Kingdom of God?
Now I was floating in outer space, looking at good ol’ Terra Firma, Mother Earth. It never even crossed my mind to ask how I was breathing up there, but, you know, God must have some neat tricks up his sleeve.
“Do you see the Kingdom of God in your home planet?”
I gotta admit, I could see it better from this orbital view than I could looking at the doll’s house. This vision was a real eye opener. Really pretty.
Lights started flashing and strange sounds filled my head. Bubbles of all different shapes and sizes floated gracefully amid the lights. I had no idea where I was or why I was here. This place was like nothing I would have ever even imagined. So I asked if this was heaven.
“This is only one of many dimensions God has created. This is the Zolphare Dimension. Do you see the Kingdom of God in the Zolphare Dimension?”
Gettin’ closer all the time. As far as I knew, this WAS the Kingdom of God.
I was beginning to feel a little tipsy, what with all the zooooping. Now I was standing in front of a huge display of... well, I can’t rightly say what it was a display of, but I was pretty sure it was a display.
“Do you see the Kingdom of God in this Shirtone Display?”
Believe it or not, I was actually starting to understand what the angel was trying to show me. I understood how my prayer had been mis-stated. My pride had me convinced that I had studied for the Sunday School lesson long enough for a complete understanding of God’s Kingdom. Truth be known, I had never understood His Kingdom at all.
He created everything, from the materials my wife used to “create” her doll’s house to things I know nothing about. There are dimensions and creations that man will never have the ability to discover, but it is still a part of God’s Kingdom. A kingdom is subject to its King. So every created thing is subject to God and is a part of His Kingdom. Time, space, strange dimensions.... all God’s Kingdom.
I was back in my study and the angel was gone.
I wonder if any of this really happened.
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Somehow you presented rather exotic material in a very readable way.
Well-done, well-done indeed.
Well done. I often wonder why we think that we have God all figured out. This was a great piece! Thanks for making us think outside of our human experience.
Interesting. Got my attention. Young, creative.
Mona
Well done.
Very creative and interesting!
This is the kind of message I always want to give to the JWs when they try to wrap God in a box and hand Him out in neat little packages - only I never can find words to describe the indescribable...
Very well done indeed.
Itty-bitty red ink: "envelope" is a noun, "envelop" was the word you meant. And I think the ending would have been stronger if you stopped after the last "zooooop". The last two lines feel tacked on.
I like the way you start, tho. I can sense the MC wanting to blurt out the whole thing, then having to back up. The voice is good, very personable and "real".