The best and the worst of times

I had a chance to talk with Pastor Doug last night at the end-of-the-year barbecue for the high school choir. His daughter and mine are both juniors, and in the choir, so we cross paths at these a good deal, but only in passing. Getting an actual conversation with him reminded me that I hadn't yet linked his latest post.

Doug's church is going through times that are both tough and exciting. Isn't that the way it always seems? The upheavals, good and bad, all seem to hit together? In their case, they're about to start building their own building (they're currently in a renovated supermarket building downtown), at the same time that their assistant pastor is fighting a very uphill battle with colon cancer. Last report is that he's discontinued treatment and is waiting to see if the Lord wants him on earth badly enough to heal him. There are occasional updates here. Nobody ever said the Christian life was a boring one.

As the old Chinese curse goes, "May you live in interesting times." Doug's latest post illustrates the duality of those times:

These times are designed by God to produce hardy saints of us all. The truth is, our predecessors, that "great cloud of witnesses" spoken of by the writer of Hebrews, faced their own "Best and Worst of Times." The history of the church is the redemption story of glory, power, healing, salvation, miracles, restoration AND martyrdom, suffering, loss, rejection, disappointment, and failure. Always, the two seemingly contradictory tracks were running parallel to one another. Even the glorious book of Acts, that theme section of the Scriptures for Charismatics, reads like a roller coaster ride of paradoxes and life and death drama.

Redemption is the story of God in the midst of sin, death, suffering, sickness etc... Some day, everything will be swallowed up in the life, beauty, and presence of redemption Himself. Until that great day arrives, this train must run on both tracks, and we must ride it!