What is the kingdom of God like? And to what can it be compared?
It is like young father who remembers his joy for building spaceships out of legos when he was young and wants both of his children to experience the same joy of creativity and exploration afforded by those colorful building blocks, so he seeks out the king of all lego spaceship sets, and buys one for each of them- the massive Millenium Falcon Star Wars set.
The sets are massive, and the father encourages his children to carefully follow the directions if they want to build the Millennium Falcon. He recalls for them how one wrong step early on can lead to much frustration later. So they build with great care, studying every page, and following it perfectly. He offers to help if they need it, but trusts them to follow the directions provided with the set.
His oldest child seeks no help, determined to complete the project on their own. The father’s heart swells with pride as he sees them struggling, sometimes working backwards, finding their mistakes and continuing forward again until the last step is completed. This child beams with their own pride and places the spaceship on a shelf in their room. It represents their own effort and achievement and even though the father had intended them to dismantle the set after completion and go on to build spaceship after spaceship of their own, nevertheless he was happy to honor his oldest child’s desire to keep the Millenium Falcon together as a display piece. But there was a sadness in his heart as what was meant for an example to inspire, became nothing more than a difficult task completed.
His youngest child, while not necessarily seeking his help, did however insist that the father build the Millennium Falcon with them. So he sat there on the floor until his back couldn’t take it anymore, then kept on sitting there, helping his little one follow the steps. Sometimes catching the mistakes along the way and pointing them out to save later grief, other times letting the little one get a step wrong, lest they miss out on the satisfaction of completing a difficult build. The laugh and talk and dream about the possibilities together as the various parts of the spaceship take shape in their hands. By the time the young child has completed the build with their father, they relish their success for only a short while, as they are overcome with eagerness to build new spaceships from their own imagination. The father had introduced them to the infinite possibilities from combining and recombining the blocks and they were hooked. Many years of lego spaceships followed, each one more impressive than the last, a regular evolutionary timeline of spaceship awesomeness- just as the father had intended from the start.
Both of them followed directions well. Both made mistakes, and then made corrections. Both were thankful for the legos and loved the gift their father had given them. Both built spaceships from those Legos. And both came to associate that Lego Millennium Falcon with their father’s love for them (and he loved them both equally and without favoritism). And yet only one had entered fully into the father’s joy and fulfilled his will for the expensive gift he had given them.
