I track nearly everything digitally but hate the idea of being tracked. I’m an introvert who hangs out with extroverts – or at least extroverted introverts. I’m a reader who spends a lot of time with people who are more visual. I’ve been virtually cashless for years but now that the idea of going cashless as a society is picking up steam, I’m using cash again. The style of music I enjoy is pretty niche, so it’s hard to find people to talk to about it, especially after losing a lifelong friend last year.
Beyond preferences and styles, I feel tension as a Christian. And I think we are supposed to feel it. We are called to be in the world but not of it. We are supposed to die to our own wants and desires. We are to submit to earthly kings but bow only to the King of kings. If an enemy slaps us on one cheek, we’re to offer him our other one, even going so far as to pray for him. We’re to consider others more highly than ourselves. And Jesus sent his disciples out as sheep among wolves to be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves.
And if you really want to feel tension, bring up any of these subjects among Christians and you’ll hear all sorts of opinions and debates. I’m much more interested in seeing people live out these principles, however they interpret them.
I have a friend who was working one day when three guys came in. Before he realized what was happening, one of them punched him in the face. My friend, who is a Christian, felt a supernatural desire to pray for the man who had just assaulted him. That takes praying for your enemies to a new level.
Our natural desire is to try to escape tension. But Jesus taught us to live in the tension. He lived in it himself when he walked this earth – more so than anybody who ever lived – facing opposition everywhere he went. John 1:9-11 (ESV) puts it this way: “The true light [Jesus], which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.”
And Jesus offered his followers this reminder in John 15:18-19: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”
That’s not exactly a cheery message, but if you are a Christian who is feeling tension right now, understand that you are supposed to feel it. Don’t try to escape from it. Look for opportunities to live in the tension in ways that honor Christ.
