i’m sitting here on one of our couches, where i almost always spend my morning time with my YWHW*. i whip out my iphone to begin reading the Bible in a version that i don’t physically have on hand, and it hits me.
this is so unromantic.
i’m a book kinda girl. i grew up going to the library with my mom and coming home with stacks of books to read. (thanks mom for always letting me check out as many books as i wanted even though i would’ve had to have been superhuman to read them all.) even recently, my dad said to me, “hey boots. remember when you used to carry around all those books as a kid? when did you stop doing that?” I plopped my bag on the counter and whipped out three books. he just smiled and laughed.
there’s something romantic to me about opening up a book and becoming acquainted with it. the smell of it**. the touch of it. being able to write scribbles in the margins, highlighting sentences that might mean something later, and even dog earring the pages. i love cracking the spine of new paperback books or reading the comments from previous owners of used books.
yet here i am, with a mini computer in my mini hands and i have a million pounds (perhaps?) worth of the Bible on it. ONE book! unreal. it’s a weird tension to be living in but then again, my whole life is a weird tension to be living in…
we went as a team to nairobi yesterday to run some errands. we drove all over and ended up passing by one of the biggest slums and one of the best restaurants in all of kenya…and they were right across the street from each other. people starving on one side of the street and others enjoying an all you can eat meat buffet on the other side. tension.
we went to one of the nicest malls and were able to enjoy frozen yogurt and pizza. yet the people who have our hearts struggle to feed their children, the same ones that we hold day in and day out. tension.
we live across the street from a school for missionary kids in what is referred to as ‘little america’. part of me can’t stand the place because it’s so comfortable and so first world. but the other part of me enjoys the pieces of home that i get to delight in because of it: the basketball court, the racquetball court, the unbelievably delicious dinner rolls and salad that i won’t get food poisoning from. tension.
i’m starting to wonder if tension is what was birthed out of the fall in the garden. eve and adam were able to enjoy the presence of the Lord at all times without any boundaries or worries. yet, they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and all hell broke loose. literally. what was the first thing that happened? they noticed they were naked and felt embarrassed. tension. what happens when good confronts evil? tension.
and it never goes away. ever. so i don’t have a choice as to whether or not i want to live in the tension but i have a choice as to what to do with the tension. the Kingdom of Heaven lives within me and it creates tension everywhere i go, especially in the face of evil. and there’s a lot of evil here, dear reader. my flesh wants to cower and run away but my Spirit takes up its offensive stance and charges. and Good prevails. always. it might not look like what i want it to, but it doesn’t keep me from engaging the tension, from pushing it back and bringing Kingdom tension in its place.
much Love.
* one morn, God told me to call Him YWHW because we’re tight like that.
**old books smell the best.
