Mother's Day 3/5: Faith in the Minor and Major Keys

Guest Blogger: Lynda Kong (Our Women's Ministry Director).
Mother’s Day Talk: "The Paradox of Our Christian Identity."

Our Christian life can also be a paradox – having two dimensions:

• On the one side is poverty of spirit, sense of need, fragility, personal guilt, sense of sin and suffering – what David Powlison calls ‘Faith in the Minor Key’.
• On the other side of the Christian life is vibrancy, boldness, strength, conviction, purpose, and vision – ‘Faith in the Major Key’.

It’s this wild identity where we experience both the fragility and struggle and the joy and confidence at the same time. Our lives don’t fall into neat and tidy categories, but rather, our lives are messy, broken, yet held very dearly by the living God Himself. So we are groping in darkness and yet also bathed with the continuous, streaming light of this living God.

We know some people who are too much on the fragile and discouraged side. We know other people who are too much on the strong and confident side. And yet, Jesus was both fragile and strong, and in just the right way.

And that’s what we’re meant to be, as we are united with Jesus in His death and resurrection life: We grieve over the brokenness in our lives, but we grieve with joy always, because we are in the gentle hands of a comforting God.

And we are exuberant and vibrantly bold, at the same time keenly sensitive to others who are suffering.

We do both, so that someone who’s struggling can walk in and be comfortable with us, and also someone who’s celebrating can walk in and be comfortable with us.

That’s what it means for us to live out our calling as being family members, called by God’s Spirit Himself.

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Pic by Danny.