Living in Tension

I drove to Raleigh yesterday and got to see several nieces and one nephew.  Abigail and Joshua got a playdate, and I got some much needed time with these sweet members of my family.  Don’t get me wrong, I always enjoy seeing my brothers and sisters-in-law but those babies do my heart good every time I’m with them.  It was the perfect way to start a week that is really hard as so much moving information continues to be thrown at us and the stress of logistics and sadness of leaving is ever present.

On the way home, I listened to a podcast a friend had sent featuring Aubrey Sampson.  In it, she mentions the term “theology of paradox” noting that it is a topic worth exploring.  She said we live in a world where there is victory in the resurrection of Jesus Christ - the war has, in fact, been won, and in the end “the old will pass away and the new will come,” but we also live in a world waiting for the final return of Christ,  and evil is still evil.  

I loved the words she put to all that because that concept has come up often in my Bible Study this year and in my personal quiet times and especially in the season I’m living now.  I’m beginning to believe that so much about the Christian life is about holding things in tension - truth and love, faith and works, trust and action.  Even theological concepts must be held in tension.  The ideas of free will and predestination are areas where Christian denominations can drastically differ, but scripture addresses both concepts, so both must hold true.

Nevertheless, living in the tension of things is not easy.  The sadness I’m living in now in no way compares to the sadness many others are facing at much harder things.  I would never want to minimize pain.  But the truth, also, is that even when we are deeply heartbroken and utterly confused, God is still good and just and loving and merciful and ever present.  He will never leave us or forsake us no matter what our feelings are telling us.  He can be all powerful, even in a world where Satan is currently permitted a lot of power.  It is wrestling with this tension and fighting to believe God is all he says he is even when we don’t feel or see it that brings beauty from ashes.

Having never walked through a truly dark valley, I don’t know if this is true in every situation, but in this small season of difficulty for me, I have also learned that even when I don’t understand all the whys, God is still more than there.  In so many areas (small and large), God has shown up in the details.  “You won’t believe this!” or “This is so crazy!” have been frequent comments in this whole process… always followed by “must be God!”  Matthew 6:25-26 has never been more real to me.  In all the areas where we have worried, God has shown up and answered prayers and been so real...even if it was just by providing a friend to cry with at the exact time needed or providing beautiful children excited to see Aunt Shannon to brighten a tough week.  But on the other side of that, even as I see God in very real ways, this move is still super hard and tears come easily.  Living in the tension is challenging, but it is in those times that we can be vulnerable enough to see God meet us and know that in every way, he is more than enough.