I recently spent two weeks at the beach. There are few things I find more relaxing than just sitting by the ocean’s edge and watching the surf roll in and recede out. The rhythm of the waves is soothing. It resonates deeply and touches something atavistic in me.

Humans are programmed for rhythm, melody, and harmony. That’s why music is part of virtually all cultures. It supposedly is a cultural universal. But the need for harmony extends beyond music. We also need harmony in our relationships. And we need harmony with God.

We find harmony with God and one another in life in the Kingdom. We seem to graft onto that life a level of complexity that God has not put there and, therefore, find the Kingdom elusive when it is, in fact, simple. Jesus told the Pharisees that the Kingdom was within them. Luke 17:20-21. That means that the Kingdom is within everyone and within reach. It is not something lost and found after death. It is here within us.

The Kingdom within us resonates as a harmonic chord when we listen for it. It is life as God intended for us to live individually and collectively. It is how we relate to God and each other. It is the how and why of everything we are intended to do. When we live life as we are intended to live, that chord thrums in harmony and provides an overwhelming peace. When we do not, our lives are discordant and we find ourselves searching for another acquisition, another person, another job, another vacation, or another anything that will satisfy us and bring us the peace and harmony we seek.

The decision to become a lay speaker was a period of discord within me. God was calling me to take that step into Kingdom life but I resisted…mightily. But when I finally submitted and walked to the pulpit to preach my first sermon, the chord within me sounded in harmony. I felt the peace and knew that I was doing precisely what I was intended to be doing by God.

So life in the Kingdom is really simple. It is just listening for God’s music within us and following the chords. It becomes hard only because we seek it through so many other ways than Christ and bury the chord so far under our own desires, plans, and thoughts that we cannot recognize God when he acts. But if we seek the Kingdom the chord will come to the surface and you will feel the harmony of God’s Kingdom in your actions and see the Kingdom in others. Each time you do you will come to know God and understand God’s Kingdom better.

The Kingdom of God is real and you can feel it, see it, and live in it now. It is not an abstract concept or something mystical to be gained after death through a righteous life. Scripture explains  how we are to live with each other and God in the Kingdom. Prayer helps us see God at work in the Kingdom. So we can dig through the barriers we have built through prayer and study. But we have to trust God and act to live in the Kingdom of God.

Jesus commanded us to seek the Kingdom first and everything of life would follow. Matthew 6:33. Kingdom life requires intention on our part. We have to seek it. If you want to seek a deeper experience of God’s Kingdom, pray that Christ reveals to you the Kingdom in something specific so you will more likely recognize God at work. Perhaps something where you feel some form of discord in your life would be a good place to start because that discord can be where you are not in touch with God but where God is reaching out to you. You may be feeling the chord, it just is that your actions are not in harmony with it. Each time you feel God’s peace in your life, you are in the Kingdom. Each time you see God’s peace at work in the world you are seeing the Kingdom. And each time you experience life in the Kingdom of God you are better equipped to experience it more frequently and fully.

If each of us listened to that chord within us all the time, and all were at peace with God, then we would see the Kingdom in full on earth. Evil prevents that, but it does not stop us from Kingdom life now…unless we allow it to do so. So seek the Kingdom within you through Christ. It’s there. You can feel it and know it in the harmony.