I appreciate Barnabas Piper’s thoughts on tensions in the Christian life:
Our faith is one of brutal tensions. Not everyone can express this, but every Christian knows it. We feel it in our guts. . . . Tension is our state of being for all of this life, and to live as a believer is to live in it.
We are born sinners incapable of making ourselves pleasing to God yet called to be holy as God is holy.
We are finite creatures seeking to understand an infinite God.
We trust that God is good although the world he created and sovereignly rules is filled with badness.
We think in terms of scientific evidence, proof, and logic though our holy book tells of miracles and supernatural occurrences.
We believe God is omnipresent though we can see him nowhere.
We have one God in three persons but not three gods.
We defy the economy of earthly power by following a leader who died to save us, who willingly laid down his glory and power, and who calls us to be the least in order to be great.
We live in this world but are told it is not our home; we are not of this place.
Our king came and ushered in his kingdom but then left with a promise of his return. So we wait.
We are saved by faith, not by good or moral works. But faith without good and moral works is dead.
We are called to consider suffering as joy.
We follow the teachings of a book that is in part clear and in part mysterious and enigmatic.
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Barnabas Piper, Help My Unbelief: Why Doubt is Not the Enemy of Faith (pp. 22-23). The Good Book Company. Kindle Edition.