There is a gift you only find when you leave the atmosphere you are familiar with. This happens when we travel, this happens when we meet people of a different race, this happens when we attend a different church, this happens when we start a new job at a different company. Every atmosphere carries a gift and when you first enter it if you have ears to hear and eyes to see it will reveal to you the gift it’s trying to give you.

I love to travel! I love exploring, new cities, new places, and meeting new people. There is a gift found in every new place that the Lord allows us to enter into. It is almost as though you can feel the excitement of the explorers like Lewis and Clark or Daniel Boone. It must’ve been what it felt like to be a traveling circuit rider that would go from place to place on horseback and bring the gospel of the kingdom. There is a Joy in exploration when you are on expedition from the Lord.

I am currently in West Palm Beach Florida a place I have never been before. The place where the residence of the President of the United States is located. Having never been in this atmosphere before the anticipation and the excitement was high upon arrival. But we landed in the dark and the rain was falling, the lightning was striking, and the thunder was rolling. It was very hard to see anything upon arrival yesterday.

Then this morning the clouds are scattered. The sky is blue, and the sun is shining. The palm trees are standing tall, the smell of ocean air is all around. These are the things I expected to see, but what I didn’t expect was the International feel of this city. The variety of people on the streets in the stores. Living in a harmony in the midst of such diversity. This is the Joy I find in the city.

I went into a store this morning and recognized the sound of different languages being spoken. What I sensed was the assimilation into American architecture without the loss of cultural identity. The ability to assimilate rather than to dominate is obvious here in West Palm Beach, Florida. It made me realize this is the America I grew up in as a child.

The kingdom of God is an architecture that we are called to assimilate into. We do not lose our distinct identities in the assimilation, but we also do not seek to make our identity, our gender, our culture, the dominant one in the kingdom. For the kingdom of God has a king and his name is Jesus Christ. The kingdom of God has a Father who is Lord overall. The kingdom of God has a Holy Spirit that unifies us all under the architecture of the kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven.

It has been less than 24 hours in this new atmosphere and what the Lord is showing me will stay with me for the rest of my life. Thank you, West Palm Beach, Florida for revealing the power of assimilation into an architecture not the desire for domination which brings division into a nation that is called the United States of America. http://www.ApostolicResourceCenter.org