Sweet Revelations - Look carefully. God's Kingdom can be seen all around us.

by Ed Klodt

Two years ago this month, on Oct. 2, 2006, a heavily armed gunman walked into a one-room schoolhouse in the Amish community of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, killing five little girls before turning the gun on himself. It was an unspeakable horror, one that has become an all-too-common headline.

Yet, in the midst of that tragedy, Americans got a glimpse into another world. At 9 p.m. that day, the parents of children who had witnessed the shooting knocked on the door of the gunman's home, offering his grief-stricken widow and children compassion, forgiveness and love. In doing so, they gave us all a peek into the Kingdom.

Jesus talked a lot about the Kingdom. He refers to it more than a hundred times in the Gospel accounts, telling people that "the Kingdom of God is near" (Luke 10:11). He goes to great lengths to explain what it is: not some far-off place we enter when we pass from this place, but present here and now. We get occasional looks at it—as we did through the actions of the Amish parents. And we, too, have opportunities to be catalysts of the Kingdom in the lives we touch.

I was reminded of this about a year ago during a brief vacation in Carmel, California, with my wife, Lyn. We were preparing to tuck into dinner at a nice bistro, when a young couple entered. With the woman was a man whose buzz cut, ramrod-straight posture and Marine Corps shirt clearly identified him as a member of the U.S. armed services.

"I wonder if he served in Iraq or Afghanistan," my wife whispered to me. "Let's buy them dinner." I protested, pointing at the menu prices. We settled on providing the couple with a nice bottle of wine, and as it was poured, the waitress pointed us out to the surprised couple. We lifted our glasses to toast them; they raised theirs in return. And at that moment, a different spirit seemed to pervade the restaurant. Something changed, markedly. We could sense it and so could others there.

As we left the restaurant that evening, we walked past the couple's table. He stood up and thanked us for the wine, explaining that they had left their children with the grandparents and escaped for a romantic weekend. Indeed, he had served two tours of duty in Iraq and was glad to be home. We thanked him and his wife for their service, said our goodbyes and turned to leave.

Waiting outside the door was a smiling man holding a big, pink box. I was walking past him when he reached out his hand to shake mine. He explained: "In the years I have owned this restaurant, we have never experienced anything like this. Everyone has been talking about the wonderful thing you did for that young couple. It changed everything in the restaurant this evening. I want to thank you."

He handed me the pink box, which was crammed full of the dessert pastries for which his bistro is known. As my wife and I continued our walk—me with my fingers already wrapped around a gooey chocolate masterpiece—I turned to her and said, "We just witnessed the Kingdom tonight."

Lyn and I are not the heroes of this story. Neither are those Amish parents in Lancaster County. God is. We—and they—were merely his agents, allowing the Kingdom to erupt in small yet wonderful ways here and now.

Ed Klodt is the author of The Jonah Factor®: 13 Spiritual Steps to Finding the Job of a Lifetime. A former corporate senior manager who recently earned a master's degree in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary, Klodt currently serves as director of spiritual growth at Bethel Lutheran Church in Encino, California.