Day 59 – the inescapable tension
My experience of
God is of being transcendent and immanent all at once. –SISTER MADONNA KOLBENSCHLAG
Almost every one of us can remember a time in childhood when we went
to a playground to have some fun on the slide, monkey bars, and swing. In
addition, we usually spent some time on the seesaw, and I want to use it to
illustrate the dynamics of dealing with the nature of God. Imagine yourself
standing on that seesaw, straddling its center so that your right foot is on
one side of the fulcrum and your left foot is on the other side. Now pretend
that your job is to keep either end of the seesaw from hitting the ground. I
can remember doing this years ago and recall the shifting tension under my
feet. To keep both ends of the seesaw off the ground required of me constant
adjustments in my weight distribution. These were small adjustments, mind you,
but if I stopped making them for one second, the seesaw became unbalanced and
one end struck the ground. To keep both ends aloft, I was forced at all times
to deal with the tension beneath me.
The attributes of God’s nature often appear to be on opposite ends of
a spectrum. On one end, there is the picture of God as transcendent—far, far
above us. On the other end, there is the view of Him as immanent—very, very
near us. To our left, He is the merciful God; to our right, the God as tough as
nails. He is omnipotent Creator and sacrificial Savior, the Revealer of Himself
to us and the One forever hidden from us, Unity yet also Three-in-One. God, on
the one hand, is absolutely sovereign; on the other hand sits the presence of
evil in our world. He seems at times active and forceful, at other times
passive and distant. He is righteous and holy, yet allows sin to reign in
lives. His justice is tempered by His longsuffering mercy, His Person
juxtaposed to His Spirit. To the Christian, He is God become man, everlasting
Father and crucified Son, the Ruler of a Kingdom that is “at hand” yet is still
to come.
Over the years, I have found myself coming to accept these dynamics as
integral parts of the religious experience. I have come to believe that all of
us stand on a seesaw called faith, constantly striving to maintain balance. At
first, it all seems rather awkward to us. Indeed, we would like to have the
tension in our hearts and minds removed. But over time, just like on that
playground, the constant adjustments become easier and more natural. Eventually
we begin to enjoy and savor the activity, realizing how vibrant faith has
become. Faith in God becomes eternally relevant as we stand over the fulcrum of
the divine paradox. If our faith is true faith, then to expect anything else is
sheer folly. We cannot avoid this tension, for the object of our faith is the
God whose nature stretches into infinity. This tension, says John Bright, is
our “natural habitat.”1 No other should we seek or desire.
One further seesaw analogy, and I’m finished. When we ride the seesaw
the conventional way, one person on each end, it takes a joint effort to keep
it going. I have to pull when you push. I release my weight as you bear yours.
To seesaw successfully, then, there must be cooperation. That’s what makes
seesawing fun. No one likes it when one person takes control, suspending the
person on the other end in air. That might be fun for a while, but eventually
it wears thin. The one in the air will usually jump off and move elsewhere. So
it is in the seesaw of life. Cooperation with those on the other side is our
best option. We may never agree with them. They may always remain on the
opposite side of faith. But we must strive to live with them in harmony. The
Ruler of our “playground” has made this very clear.
1John Bright, The Kingdom of God (New York: Abingdon,
1953), 253.
Daily Quotation
Daily Quotation
Quoted in Mark Water, The New Encyclopedia of Christian Quotations,
326.
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