Yesterday we spent the morning worshipping with our church, Hope Chapel.  The progression of songs perfectly captured the “already/not yet” to which this url refers, and I realized how often we allow this reality to pass us by without even recognizing it.  

We started out by singing, “…the King has come! The King of love has come!”  It’s a joy-filled song by one of my favorite writers of new hymns, Stuart Townend.   We sang loudly and proclaimed that He has, indeed, come to us - the King of kings has sent His Spirit to dwell with us so that we may be His people.  It was a lovely, raucous time. 

We moved on to other songs:

“Holy is the Lord God Almighty, the earth is filled with His glory…”

“Gracious Lord…You have poured kindness over me…”

And then eventually, a song from Psalm 130: “My soul waits for you, Oh God, as the watchman waits for the morning, as the watchman waits for the dawn, we wait for you.”

And we began to proclaim out loud again, this time in hope and faith, that He is coming. 

The King has come.  The King is coming.  Both are true, simultaneously, and both are our hope - without one, the other just wouldn’t make sense. This is the tension that we live in everyday as followers of Jesus.  “Life in between” is our reality.  Sometimes I focus too much on the “not yet,” on what is to come.  I’d like to live more in the “already.”  

It’s also possible to go too far in the other direction - yes, the King has come, and there is hope and victory because of Him, but there is much that is still wrong and evil in this world.  There is a “not yet” that we are waiting for, that we believe is coming still.  And then and only then will things be completely right and whole.

Life in between is where we are for now, for today.  This tension can overwhelm me at times; I cry out with joy for the beauty of life and the world around me, and weep for the pain and suffering that the very same world inflicts.  May we live fully in the midst of this tension, embracing both the sorrow and the glory that comes into our lives, and learning what it means to follow Him through it all, in victory and faith and hope.