All the time, everywhere, in everything.

There we go — the answer to the question right at the beginning. “All the time,” “everywhere,” and “everything” … keeping it rather simple.

It was obvious anyway, what the answer was. No need to build up to it as if I was going to say anything different from what you expected. And there also is no need for us to go through the trouble of dividing up “all the time” into some times, “everywhere” into some places, and “everything” to some things.

Yet, this is what we do.

Yep, we can do some pretty impressive work on “all the time,” “everywhere,” and “everything,” especially when we use them to talk about what God has to do with us.

My home is the American South. For many of us here to be brutally honest about what we believe in regards to when, where, and with what God’s dominion has something to say, we would end up with something like, “Thank you, God, for letting me feel good about voting Republican, holding conservative values, and going to heaven when I die, but you’ve got nothing to say about the food on my plate and how it gets there, the time I spend (or don’t spend) advocating for the victimized, or the ways I’m exploiting and abusing the earth instead of taking care of it and ruling over it on your behalf, as you created me to do.”

When, where, what?

Sometimes, some places, some things.

But what about how, and who?

What about, when God says something, how does he say it? Or, when God wants to do something, how does he do it?

What if the how question has a who answer? What if the kingdom of God comes through all of human life–through human work and human rest? Or is it that God only matters for religion, so that we are accountable to God to be Christians but not accountable to God to be proper humans? To do and become what we were created for in the first place?

The kingdom of God means more all the time than it does at any one time, it comes everywhere instead of remaining in only some places, and it has something to say about everything–not just some things.