Good Tension

Last week at our congregational meeting I spoke in closing around the idea of tension.  I shared candidly about how as humans we tend to like sameness, and anything that is not the same tends to make us feel well, tension.  Worse yet, we are taught early on in life that we should associate any tension with something bad.  If you feel it, then it must be from something you should stop, or make go away, or otherwise distance yourself from, because tension is bad.

 

This, while partially true, misses a key point for us as Christians: God-filled tension.  Scripture tells us that God’s desire is to see us become more and more each day like His son, Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:10).  This process, that we call discipleship, is one that in innately filled with tension, good tension.  Tension like the feeling you have the day of your wedding as you wait to say I do, tension like I felt in the months before becoming a parent, tension filled with excitement and expectations, trusting and waiting for what God is going to do.

 

Waiting to step into the unknown is often not a calming experience, our emotions tend to go on high alert, even the best ones, in those moments.  Yet as a church we are in a very different kind of waiting.  We are readying our hearts to hear God speak.  We are preparing ourselves to humbly submit to the Holy Spirit’s leading and direction, to celebrate with one another the ways God has already and will continue to change lives.  We are readying ourselves to hear how God wants us to be part of His Kingdom work to change lives.  The God of the Universe is going to speak to you and me, to invite us into His grand plan, to empower us, to excite us, to provide for us all that we need to live out His call faithfully.

 

All this begins with God transforming us, stretching us, moving us, so that we can be a part of His plan by creating tension for change.  I am so excited to hear how is already at God work in and through each of us.  I am just as excited to look back in two years, and smile at the amazing ways God took us from where we are today, to where he wants us in the future.  This is a time filled with tension, not between one another, not negative tension alone, but tension filled with excitement and expectation, knowing that God has great plans for us as His Church, to make an impact to the places that He sends each of us.

 

Pastor Bill