Tension

Tension is a buzz word at L’Abri. All of the books I am reading speak of tension; the word just leaps off the page at me now. I guess I hadn’t previously opened my eyes to it, but knew it well enough inside of my head. Tension is a good thing… so they say.

So, what have I learned about tension? As a Christian I will constantly be in this place. There is constant tension between reality and my set of beliefs. Francis Schaeffer says that being completely on one side or the other, being bound solely by reality, or being bound solely by a set of beliefs, is damning oneself. And he also mentions that we can never be completely balanced in the middle. So what do I do with this? Why did God make us this way, or did we make us this way (sin)?

This leads me not to have strict answers on most things, and it also leaves me struggling with the same things…over and over and over again. The tension will never leave, but it may be less at some points in my life, while other tensions seem to rise up.

I know this may seem vague or confusing, but it has been actually freeing to process this with my tutor. At least now I know that it is normal to revisit the tensions over and over again. I do have a foundation to wrestle with that tension upon (thank goodness)! But, with this in mind, I also don’t live with the guilt of solving that tension, but of approaching it with new experiences as well as hindsight.