Because we mistranslated teshuvah, we misunderstood everything that followed
We didn’t just mess up a word.
We severed a thread.
When we mistranslated teshuvah—when we made it about guilt instead of return—we didn’t just twist a definition.
We distorted an entire relationship.
And with it, we distorted our understanding of what it means to come back to God.
To return.
To be restored.
To find our way home.
If teshuvah is the invitation—“Return to Me”—then what happens when we tell people it means repent?
We create fear where there was meant to be movement.
Shame where there was meant to be restoration.
A courtroom when it was supposed to be a reunion.
It’s no wonder so many of us picture God like a judge.
Or a disappointed father.
Or a distant king, waiting for us to grovel properly before opening the gates.
Heaven isn’t a courtroom reward—
where you’re waiting to see if you’ll be let free or locked up.
Because if returning to God has been framed as a punishment instead of a homecoming,
then Heaven becomes a place we might be allowed to enter—if we can manage to stay clean long enough.
But that’s not teshuvah.
Heaven—if we trust the language God actually used—is the fullness of return.
It’s teshuvah made complete.
It’s what happens when the ache for home is finally met with open arms.
And here is where I get to tell you another truth—one that’s always trying to be forgotten:
You don’t have to wait until you’re dead to go home.
📖 Colossians 1:13
“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of His beloved Son…”
This is past tense.
Not “will deliver.”
Not “someday you’ll enter.”
He has transferred us.
We’re already in it.
What “Kingdom” Actually Means (Biblically)
Greek: Basileia (βασιλεία) — usually translated “kingdom,” but the core meaning isn’t a place.
It’s a reign. An active authority. A ruling presence.
Hebrew: Malkut (מַלְכוּת) — same idea.
Not a castle. Not a country.
It’s the sovereign rule of the King.
So when Jesus says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,”
He’s not pointing to some far-off celestial estate.
He’s saying:
“The reign of God is here. My authority is breaking in. Everything changes now.”
“Wait a minute.
This is what my church teaches! Jesus is King! His Spirit is here with us! He walks beside us!
We sing it. We pray it. We say it all the time.
But then… we’re also told, “Jesus will return.” “Pray for His coming.” “This world is not our home.”
So…
Which is it?
Is the Kingdom here, or is it still coming? Is Jesus already reigning, or are we still waiting?”
This is where theology often splits into two unhealthy camps (where crap happens…)
1. “It’s all future.”
→ So you wait. You try to behave. You hope for Heaven.
→ But your faith stays passive, abstract, disconnected from today.
2. “It’s all now.”
→ So you try to manifest glory on Earth and fix everything through human means.
→ But you get disillusioned when suffering keeps showing up.
But Jesus didn’t teach either/or.
He taught already and not yet.1
The Kingdom isn’t a someday-fantasy, and it’s not a finished project either.
It’s a living tension.
Jesus brought it.
We live in it, and we’re still waiting for it – Free from shame and guilt*
That’s the “already and not yet.” Not a contradiction.
A rhythm. A continuum.
A connection between now and then.
And that’s where it all clicks.
That ache I talked about in Part One—the one that stirs when I trace names on old records or stare at a sky too big for words—it’s not just nostalgia. It’s not about geography or memory.
That ache isn’t an open wound.
It’s an echo of where we come from.
And (yes, my dear friend) it’s an invitation to come home.
Footnote
“Already and not yet” is a theological phrase used to describe the tension between what God has already done through Jesus (such as the arrival of the Kingdom) and what is still unfolding (the fullness of restoration). The concept is grounded in Scripture—see passages like Colossians 1:13 (already) and Romans 8:23 (not yet)—and was articulated in modern theology by scholars like George Eldon Ladd and Oscar Cullmann. ↩
The Pondering Place 
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