The kingdom of God is not my 1700 square foot house. It just isn’t. And it isn’t Esther’s Yurt or the two bedroom apartment I moved into when I got to Atlanta. The kingdom of God does  not have walls, because the kingdom of God is not limited to a certain amount of space.

It is my sixth week writing about scarcity and I am not even close to running out of things to say or people to love bomb. (In fact rumor has it the love bombing is CATCHING! I don’t have to lead it y’all, you can totally love bomb people anytime anyway and it is always, ALWAYS this much fun.) I think I could talk about scarcity forever because I need to shout down the lies. Scarcity is in the air we breathe and it is really important that I keep on checking my air filter or that crappy stuff gets into my brain.

This summer I have spent a lot of time thinking about space. Over and over again I have heard people talking about space. Space at theĝrdð table, space at the pulpit, room for other people. Sometimes loudly and sometimes quietly I head the people who were already inhabiting these spaces, the table, the pulpit, the room, wonder if the space for others would come at the cost of the space they had. How do we make space for others without losing the space of our own?

Sometimes the person doing the questioning was me, loudly in my own heart. If people are making space for other people, does that mean I get pushed out? Sometimes making room for others does mean you give up something you had. Sometimes it means changing roles and transitioning places. But it  almost always means gaining something way, way better.

Some of my stuff got displaced at the beginning of the summer. A friend needed a space to stay for a couple of months so we moved him into our guest room. If I am honest it is inconvenient sometimes. The junk that I kept in there and only needed occasionally I had to move, or I no longer have access to whenever I randomly decide I want it. I literally have one less room in my house that is mine right now. But sometimes him and his girlfriend make dinner and drinks for us, or entertain the girls. We have become much closer because we all hang out together a lot more. I have less physical space, but I have a lot more room to be Abby in our relationship. This is the way abundance works, whatever you have given up is replaced with something far more valuable.

As I am writing this my girls are arguing about what kind of party they are going to have, right now with just the two of them. Juliet wants a pajama party, but Priscilla wants a princess party. I suggested they throw a princess pajama party. Princesses wear pajamas too and Lord knows we have enough princess pajamas in this house to host about six more girls. Sometimes making room for other people means you hate to give up absolutely no room for yourself. It just means everyone gets what everyone wants.

Scarcity tells us that letting other people in means we have to move and crouch and cut off bits of ourself, that there is only so much space and other people are going to crowd you out. Y’all the kingdom of God is NOT like the back seat of my sisters car when I was a freshmen in highschool. We do not all have to heap in and barely breathe for there to be room for us all to come. The kingdom of God is like the tents in Harry Potter. As much space as we need on the inside, regardless of what the outside of the tent look like. There is so much room, an abundance of room, and we are all invited.

Love Bombs are back to their regularly scheduled program! This week we are bombing someone who makes a lot of room. (I know so many people like that!) So drop me a comment that you are in and I will email you her twitter handle so we can all tell her on Friday how great she is!