228 The Lens You Hold

On Empire, Kingdom, and the God Who Answers the Right Questions

Mar 28, 2026

This article was partly inspired by a sermon given by Jamie Winship.

Good morning and hello friends,

The coffee was particularly delicious this morning. I stood at the kitchen counter, watching the steam rise, and the thought arrived not as a revelation but as a simple, blunt fact. Why does God answer some prayers and not others? Was there a pattern escaping me?

I have been asking the wrong questions. I have been praying the wrong prayers. I have been seeing the world through a cracked, distorted lens and then wondering why the picture made no sense sometimes.

I have been living with an empire worldview while begging a Kingdom God for answers.

The difference is not academic. It is the difference between life and death, between connection and isolation, between peace and a frantic, desperate striving. It changes perspectives and posture. It changes how I read the Bible, how I hear God, how I see my neighbor, and how I understand my own place in this story…His story.

For most of my life and recent walk in the faith, I saw the world as an empire sees it. I did not know there was another way. We are born into this framework. It is the water we swim in, the air we breathe. It tells us a story of separation. Of scarcity. Of power and control. It whispers that there is not enough. Not enough time, not enough money, not enough security, not enough love. It tells us we must compete, compare, and claw our way to the top of whatever heap we find ourselves on. It says the self is the center, and the goal is to protect that self, to expand its territory, to ensure its survival at all costs.

In this empire view, God is a distant CEO, a benevolent but busy monarch you petition for resources. Prayer becomes a transaction. “God, give me more. Protect what’s mine. Give me success in this, . Keep me safe.” We ask for blessings that look like empire victories. We seek certainty in a universe He designed to be a mystery. We want a five-year plan when He offers a daily bread.

This was my default setting. My prayers were empire prayers. My anxieties were empire anxieties. My loneliness was empire loneliness, born from the foundational lie that we are separate.

Then, I met the King. Not the CEO. The King.

His worldview is not an adjustment to the empire. It is a different creation entirely. It starts with a truth so fundamental it rewrites reality: “The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water.” (Proverbs 8:22,24 ESV). Before anything was separated, there was Wisdom. And Wisdom was with God. And Wisdom was for connection, for the weaving together of all things.

The Kingdom worldview is one of connection. We are built for reconciliation, not for separation. Sin, at its root, is not a list of bad behaviors. It is the act of separating. From God. From each other. From the earth. From our own true selves. Death is not the cessation of breath. It is the final, absolute state of separation. This is why the wages of sin is death. The paycheck for a life of pulling away is ultimate aloneness.

In the Kingdom, there is enough. Enough manna for today. Enough grace for this moment. Enough time to do what He has asked me to do. The scarcity is a myth sold by the empire to keep me afraid and grasping. The Kingdom says, “Look at the birds of the air… Consider the lilies of the field…” (Matthew 6:26,28 ESV). Your Father knows what you need. There is enough because He is enough.

This changes prayers.

Jesus was asked, “How do we pray?” He did not give a formula for empire success. He gave a template for Kingdom alignment.

“Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.” (Luke 11:2 ESV).

The first priority is His name, His reputation, His character. The second is the advance of His Kingdom, the realm where His connected, abundant, joyful will is done. Then, and only then, do we ask for our provision. “Give us each day our daily bread.” Not a warehouse. Not a retirement account. Our daily bread. Enough for today. Because in the Kingdom, tomorrow is not mine to secure. It is His to provide.

An empire prayer is about accumulation and protection. A Kingdom prayer is about reliance and participation.

This shift in lens changes what I even think to ask for.

The empire asks, “God, how do I win?” The Kingdom asks, “Father, how do I love?”

The empire asks, “God, how do I build my security?” The Kingdom asks, “Father, how do I trust Yours?”

The empire asks, “God, how do I get more?” The Kingdom asks, “Father, how do I share what I have?”

The empire asks, “God, make me certain of my future.” The Kingdom says, “Father, I am certain of You.”

God answers Kingdom questions. He does not answer empire questions. He will not participate in the narrative of separation and scarcity. “God, here is my plan, help me make it work”, how I used to pray.

He will, with infinite patience, work to dismantle that narrative in my heart and replace it with His truth.

I see this in Moses. He had an empire worldview: a prince of Egypt, a man of power and position. He saw a Hebrew being beaten, and his empire mind moved to fix it with empire methods: violence, control. He killed the Egyptian and had to flee. It was only at the burning bush, when he was stripped of all his empire power, that he encountered the I AM. His worldview shattered. He moved from “How can I fix this?” to “Who am I to do this?” and finally to “Here I am.” He moved from separation (fleeing to Midian) to connection (standing barefoot on holy ground, being sent back to his people).

God did not need Moses the prince. He wanted Moses the connected servant.

This is the terrifying, beautiful invitation. He invites us into things “so far beyond anything we could have come up with” that it scares us to death. Why are we scared? Because we cannot control it. The Kingdom operates on a logic of love and surrender, not control and power. When He gives wisdom and He gives it generously, it often points to a path of greater connection, greater risk, greater dependence. It asks us to forgive when we want to get even. To give when we want to hoard. To trust when we want to panic.

My failure is not a sin. In the Kingdom, failure is learning. It is the data point that says, “That path led to separation. Let’s try a different way, together.” Sin is the conscious choice to separate. Failure is the humble recognition that my attempt didn’t work, and my connection to my King is my only way forward.

So now, I am learning to check my lens. When fear rises, I ask: is this an empire fear of not having enough, or a Kingdom alert to a real threat? When I pray, I listen: am I asking for an empire result, or for a Kingdom reality? When I read the news, I reframe: am I seeing through the lens of competitive scarcity, or through the lens of a connected creation groaning for redemption?

The shift is not instant. It is the daily, patient work of retraining my eyes. It is choosing to believe, in this moment, that there is enough. That I am connected. That He is King. That my only real task is to abide in that Vine, to stay connected to that Source.

The empire shouts of scarcity, power, and self. The Kingdom whispers of enough, love, and the King. The lens I hold determines which voice I hear, which prayer I pray, and which world I actually live in.

I am putting down the old lens. It is heavy, and it lies. I am picking up the one He offers. It is lighter than I imagined. The view is clearer than I deserve.

That is all, and thank you for reading.