Tension
I’ve been thinking this week about different points in my life when there’s been tension.
Sometimes it’s tension in a relationship and that’s hard when there’s a conflict in your marriage or a problem between you and a friend. Sometimes there’s been tension at work with a coworker. And then, there have been seasons where there is tension within the church itself, and that’s hard, too.
Saying YES LORD is easy when everything lines up. When what we believe God is calling us to do is what we want to do or what we like to do.
Saying YES LORD to helping out a neighbor in need, or to giving financially to a cause we love and want to support, or even saying YES LORD to things like spending time in prayer can be a relatively easy.
But what happens when saying YES LORD means saying YES to tension?
Saying YES When it Isn’t Easy
I think about Moses who was asked to say YES LORD to leading the people of God out of Egypt. Moses didn’t want to return to Egypt. And leading God’s people into the Promised Land turned out way more difficult than he probably imagined. So difficult in fact that most of the people he led out of Egypt never entered God’s Promised Land.
I think about Daniel who said YES LORD to prayer even when praying to God was made illegal. Yet he kept praying all the way to the Lion’s Den. I don’t know for sure but my guess is Daniel never expected to walk away from that Lion’s den alive. Yet even in that tension he remained faithful.
I think about Mary who was young, not even married yet, encountering an angel who told her she would bear a son who would be God’s Messiah. And I think about Mary’s response knowing how hard it would be to be pregnant at her age, before her wedding, and no way to really explain how it happened, yet she responded with these words, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.”
I think about Jesus praying in the garden before his crucifixion. Talk about tension. With the cross before him he cries out to God, “Not my will but yours be done.”
What happens when saying YES LORD isn’t easy because it means saying YES to something that makes us uncomfortable, something that will challenge us beyond what we think we can bear, and will ask more of us than we think we can give?
Where God Works
I don’t know about you, but I tend to try and avoid conflict. Some of us are hard wired this way so when tension pops up we do our best to walk away. This happens in small ways but it also happens in major ways.
But what if it’s in the tension where we experience the working of God in our life?
What if it’s in the heat of the refiner’s fire that we can then be shaped on the anvil into who God wants us to be? What happens if we’re unwilling to stay in the tension, to experience the heat, to be formed and transformed by God?
Paul said it this way in Romans 5.3-5:
“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will NOT lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.”
What if the tension is good? What if the tension is where God shapes and forms us? What if we lean into the tension with faith, humility, and love?
Here’s what I want to suggest today… if you tend to avoid tension, if you are more likely to walk away from the problem, from what brings you discomfort instead of leaning in, I want to invite you INTO the tension.
And here’s why… so that you can be changed. And most of all, so God can be glorified in you.
Lean in. Say YES LORD to whatever is before you. And trust God in the process in every problem to develop your endurance, your strength of character, and your confident hope of salvation.
For you are dearly loved by God.
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