Let Your Kingdom Come

A few months ago I started watching the show Breaking Bad.  This is one of the most spiritually intense shows I've seen in awhile, but I'll save those thoughts for another post.

I'm in season 2, and last night I watched an episode called "Peekaboo."  In this episode one of the main characters, Jesse, is on a desperate quest to get money back that was stolen from a crackhead couple.  Jesse gets to their house, begins psyching himself up, and then breaks into the house.  No one is there, so after looking around for his money he sits down on the couch to wait.  A little time goes past, and he hears a door open.  Out walks a little boy, maybe 3 or 4 years old.  He's quiet, he's dirty, he's little, and most of all, he's alone.  The boy walks over to the tv and turns it on.  It's a QVC-type channel with a man selling a knife set.

Jesse asks him if he'd rather watch Mister Rogers or something like that.  No response, so Jesse goes over to the tv and flips the channel.  Nothing but static.  Next channel: static.  On and on like this until he gets back to the shopping channel.  So he goes to sit back down by the little boy.  Finally the boy opens his mouth and says, "I'm hungry."  So Jesse goes and fixes him the little bit of food he finds in the house. And then he continues to wait.

Finally the parents come back, and you quickly see what terrible people these are.  They leave their little boy alone.  They don't bathe him.  They don't take care of him.  They don't parent him. This saddened me and angered me.  And I know this is a fictional story, but there are kids like this in our city and throughout our world.  And if this saddens and angers me so much, I wonder how it makes God feel.

Here's what is even sadder.  If something doesn't change for this child; if someone doesn't step in, then the chance is good that he'll end up like his parents.  And I can be mad at these "parents" all I want, but what was their childhood like?  Was it similar?  We live in a broken world.  What God intends for us has not happened.  The Bible says that we are all guilty of violating Shalom (wholeness, peace,welfare).

Now Jesse, who flirts back and forth between good and evil (one of the great things about the show), wants to do something for this kid, but he too has violated Shalom.  He's a drug dealer, so he can't get too involved.  So he calls 911, sets the kids outside, and then leaves.

God's Kingdom is here.  It was ushered in with Jesus.  But it's not here as it will one day be here.  And until that time, we join with God in His rescue plan.  We work and we pray.  I'm grateful to be a part of the Midtown Prayer Collective.  This season of prayer gives me the opportunity to press into God, to seek His face, and to pray something like this:

God, let Your Kingdom be as evident here in Memphis as it is in Heaven.
Grant us the privilege of being a part rescuing work.
We pray for spiritual rescue.
For physical rescue.
For emotional rescue.
Here we are, God.
Send us!