He can handle the tension between your faith and doubts. He can handle the tension between your expectations and your experiences; between your desires and your reality; between your beliefs and your feelings. He can handle the tension between your imperfections and His holiness. You don’t have to be perfect, you don’t have to hold it all together. He can handle the contradictions and faults within your life. He can handle the tension. In fact, He already has handled it. And He chose to do it.
When Jesus came to earth, He literally placed Himself in the middle of our tension. And then He overcame it. Romans 5:8 says “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Here He was, the perfect Son of God, standing in the midst of hypocrites, sinners, and imperfect people, the tension of perfection and imperfection so tight, and He gave up His life to fix it. He stepped into our mess and made it clean. And it’s because He wanted to. His love is so great towards you that He wanted to cut the tension between you and Him, even though he didn’t have to; even though it meant dying for people who didn’t love Him in return. If He was willing to save you when you were completely turned away from Him, then I believe He is willing to stay beside you even now.
God’s not scared of the tension, in fact, it’s where He does some of His best work, for His power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). So trust Him in the tension. Trust that He’s not running away from your doubts or your questions. Trust that He’s not running away from you. He said, “never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.” Jesus can handle your weakness, He can handle your imperfection. You don't have to hold it all together because He holds all things together.
I don’t like tension. I don’t like not having it altogether. I can’t tell you how many times I have cried because I didn’t believe what I thought I should, or I couldn’t make sense of God’s goodness and faithfulness in the midst of different situations. I didn’t like not knowing, not having perfect faith, not always feeling happy. There was tension, and I didn’t like it. I still don't like it. But I’m trying to be okay in the tension because I belong to Jesus. He saves me and He holds onto me. I’ve had this skewed view of thinking that I made myself right with Him, and that it is because of what I did that made Him fight for me and love me. It’s not though. It is purely out of His love for me and faithfulness that He will never leave or forsake. It is purely out of His heart that He fights for us. If He didn’t run away from us when we were running away from Him, then He’s not going to leave you now.
Even as I write this, there is tension. I so badly want to have unshakeable and firmly fixed faith, but if I am honest, I've dealt with a lot of questions. But God has been faithful. So in the tension, I'm trying to hold onto Him; not my idea of Him, not my ability to believe everything I should without question, not my perfection, not me, But just Him. I don't need feelings, I don't need understanding, I don't need everything to line up and make sense in my mind, I just need Him. He is enough.
We all go through a lot in this life. The world is full of sin and I'm sure we have all felt the repercussions of that. One of those repercussions that I don't think we think about though, is that sin causes us to have a skewed view of God. We judge Him based off of an imperfect world and try to make Him fit into our culture and mindsets, when He is calling us to just see HIM and to just know HIM. I don't know what tension you are facing right now. Maybe it is doubting God and His Word... been there. Maybe it is a health issue... been there. Maybe it is a relationship issue, maybe it is a mental issue, maybe it is a (fill in the blank). Whatever it is, I can tell you God is faithful. He is strong. He can handle it. So trust Him. Ask Him for help to understand and get past the difficulties, and the trust Him to hold you and keep you as you deal with the tension. It's difficult, I know. But He's good and worthy of trusting, I know that too. So no matter what your feelings and fears say, go to the One who can silence everything that is screaming within you, and lean into Him and rest in Him. Jesus says, "Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart."
Understand, God can handle the tension. He's done it before, and He'll keep doing it until the glorious day when there is no more tension.
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