Our faith is full of tension. 

 

For years I debated with people over the issue of free will. (I know. I know.) Did I choose God? Or did God choose me? Often, I would take different sides on the issue, depending on how strongly I felt about it that day, trying to figure out which one I actually believed. After a long time, I came to the conclusion I still hold today. Did I choose God or did He choose me? The answer is….(drumroll)… yes! 

 

Some of the tensions in our faith are intellectual. Some seem to be philosophical. Some are just plain personal. And the creative tension found in walking day-by-day with Jesus exposes the bundle of paradoxes that I am. The tension that is Tom Cottar.

 

I am faithful unless I’m being fickle. 

 

I am strong when I’m not being weak. And I am usually tired and weak the day after I’m strong. 

 

I trust God easily unless I’m particularly skeptical about Him.

 

I feel bad about feeling good and feel better when I feel bad about it all. 

 

I am confident and insecure (you should’ve seen how my fingers stuttered while trying to type that…). 

 

Aristotle says I am a rational animal. Thomas Merton says I am a Saint: someone who is not good, but experiences the goodness of God. I say I am the workmanship of God, created to do good works in Christ Jesus.

 

It’s interesting to me that ‘workmanship’ is the Greek word poiema…from which we get our word poem. What an amazing thought to think of oneself as God’s poem! In the theater of my imagination, I envision God, pencil in hand, laboring over each verse of our lives. Crafting just the right color and nuance to make the collection a masterpiece for the ages. Our lives become a poem as part of the redemption Narrative. Whether we choose Him or vice-versa, each phrase is turned perfectly. Lovingly. Completely. 

 

If Christ’s redemptive work was (at least in part) intended to restore the image of God in us, and if creativity is central to God’s being, then creativity should become more and more part of who we are. (After all, it took great creativity for Adam to come up with names for all those animals!)

 

How is it that we who serve the most creative being in the multiverse have made following Him so predictable? So boring? So….monotonous? 

 

What if we are to be continually and constantly co-engaged in the creative works of God? 

 

What if the tension is needed to help us live creatively? 

 

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Your thoughts?