Accessible Eschatology: the "already, but not yet" in spiritual formation

So, the "already, but not yet" of the Christian faith is an expression of the tension we experience as followers of Christ living between his first coming (in humility, service, and suffering) and his second coming (in power and glory, to rule with true justice over all the earth). I believe that understanding this tension can help us understand the ebbs and flows of our relationship with God. It can teach us about our seasons of life, others' seasons of life, self-esteem, and suffering.

Allow me to use my personal journey as an example. I first started taking my faith in Christ seriously as a college freshman. Each week I participated in a Bible study, went to church, and went to a large-group campus ministry meeting. I was reading my Bible and praying privately almost every day. I went to a fall conference and a winter conference with the campus ministry group, and I volunteered for random stuff here and there. My faith was growing like gangbusters - the Bible was speaking into my life in ways I didn't know it could, I was connecting with God as never before, and my thoughts and actions were being reshaped by my growing convictions. I spent that first summer doing what was called a "summer project" with the campus ministry group, and I came back my sophomore year on a huge high - continuing to grow individually, and also growing as a new leader of others in ministry. God was bearing fruit in me and in others' lives through me. It was an exciting time!

In retrospect, I see that I was experiencing the "already" of life in Christ. Everything was new, and the horizon of life was expanding before my eyes. My appetite for learning new things and experiencing new things regarding life in Christ was insatiable. It was wondrous and wonderful... and I couldn't understand how some other Christians were living anything but an abundant, victorious life.

Fast-forward a few years. I had been exposed to all of the "big truths" of the Christian faith on at least some level. I became resigned to the fact that I would very rarely learn anything truly new from a preacher (or even from the Bible!) ever again. I had experienced a wide variety of ministry opportunities, and I had learned that ministry wasn't as simple as I once thought it was. I was seeing the world through increasingly pessimistic lenses, recognizing that many people aren't just passively naïve of spiritual truth - they can be intentionally ignorant, avoidant, and unresponsive. I had learned that the church had more problems than I thought it did & way more than I thought it should. I had been through a rough patch in life, facing issues that did not have simple answers. I began to long for God's deeper redemption.

I was living in the "not yet" of our life in Christ. At the same time, this felt wrong. I had one category for what life in Christ should feel like, and that was the "already" category. In this place of "disequilibrium," where the old ways of thinking were no longer working, I could have become disenfranchised with the whole enterprise - church, trusting God, Bible, prayer, ministry... whatever. Disenfranchisement could have taken the face of enduring pessimism in these areas or outright rejection of all of them.

Fortunately, I took a better road: I allowed new categories to take shape in me. These weren't entirely new categories for the Christian life, but they were new to my life. I found that life in Christ is big enough for both "already" and "not yet." In fact, I found that this is the essence of what it means to live for Jesus in this age on earth - we need both.

Those of us who find ourselves in a season where the "already" dominates must not look down on those currently soaking in the "not yet" (as I had in my early walk of faith). Those of us abiding in the "not yet" should not look on "already" folks with snorts of sarcasm and a "just wait and see, buddy" attitude. We need each other - "already" folks need to be reminded that life with God isn't always roses, and "not yet" people need to recognize that God really does bless his people and transform their lives in many ways in this life.

Marinating at one end of the spectrum while ignoring the other is unhealthy and unwise. A "not yet" life with no theology of the "already" wrongly resigns itself to the thought that spiritual growth and freedom from patterns of sin can't happen; the "not yet" self-esteem is too low. An "already" life with no theology of the "not yet" wrongly labels everything that isn't going right in another person's life as the result of that person's sin; the "already" self-esteem is too proud. A mature spiritual life is a blend of the "already, but not yet," allowing for certain seasons of life to ebb and flow between being deeply satisfying and truly painful. The "already, but not yet" self-esteem is on the high side, because we know that we have been created in God's image and even re-created to become like Christ, but we are not unrealistic about personal limitations and ongoing struggles with sin.

God is there in the midst of all seasons. The risen Christ celebrates with us when his reign is evident in our lives. The crucified Christ suffers with us when life sucks. We praise God for his blessings on this side of Christ's first coming, and we praise God for the coming end to our frustrations when Christ will come again.

Next post: life after the afterlife.