The Tension in the Wait

Ok so I am going to level with you guys this week, I hate strength training. I first realized my hate for it in high school when I realized track team was not for me.  In middle school I was a fast runner, I could sprint when I was in middle school all the way down the first base line and bunt and outrun the ball.  I loved running so fast that I could fly, and there were a few times I did and ran over the first baseman.  So one of the dads told my dad I should join track.  I HATED IT.  I hated running just to run, there was no ball I was trying to outrun, and I loathed conditioning.  I had a musical practice and missed a whole week of conditioning, and when I came back the girls who were slower than me a week before were now faster than me.  They were impressed with their results, I quit track but chose to pursue the musical that I was in, because I saw my passion was not in the running itself but beating out the ball.  When I tried to condition I fought it with everything in me. I would pretend illness, I would hide, I would try anything I could just to get out of the process of conditioning.  But I would stay at musical practice till 11 at night, practice dance routines, sing and speak in front of people, and wouldn't bat an eye.  Because to me it didn't feel like conditioning.  There are times in life when the tension of this life energizes us and also makes us what to avoid it with everything in our being.
Tension 
I like what Webster's dictionary says about tension: it is act of stretching or condition or degree of being stretched to stiffness.  Tension is something we are feeling all around the world right now.  Wars and rumors of wars, destruction, human trafficking, children being mutilated, murdered, heroin killing those in my local community, brother against brother, you name it every one is tense.   People being torn because of political unrest, those who should be asking the questions are building walls.  We are scared of tension because it is the unknown and it unlocks a stretching in a way we have never seen before.  YET if we look at the heroes of Faith in Hebrews in Hebrews 11 I LOVE how the Bible says it "Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.  For our ancestors won God's approval by it.  Those words in and of itself are a TENSION.  If it were a Math equation it would be Reality +Proof = Reality of Hope + Proof of Unseen. These oh my! Tension in and of itself.  We as Christians get the privilege of living out tension because tension causes strength.  Pauls says For our ancestors won God's approval by it.  Ok, tension wins God's approval.  I hear peoples dreams all the time, mostly in the context of what they wished they had done.  My job is the tension of fighting for life, and accepting death. It is the tension of a Cancer Nurse.  Some days I cry in my car, some days I smile all the way home, but everyday I walk knowing I have been stretched in a way I never saw before.  Like me as a teenager we would rather avoid tension when God is saying "You must walk out tension in order to be shown approved.  WITHOUT FAITH it is IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE GOD.  We are asking God to move mountains in our lives but we are not willing to embrace the tensions that are stretching us into those heroes of faith.   What would it look like if instead of running, hiding, fearing, and avoiding tension you took a deep breath and embraced it?  What could God do in you and through you?
Wait
 I work out at least three times a week now, I am not a cross fit person (Mad props to my cross fit girls though!), but I go to the gym and do cardio and strength training.  I have a tight hip and a tight shoulder, so stretching is painful more so that working out.  I have to breathe and focus in order to stretch those muscles because it is so painful.  Then when I work out on the machines I have to make sure they are set to my height (I am short) and I push the weights and then slowly release breathing through each one.  This my friends is the wait.  Faith is that place of putting your spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental focused on God's truths instead of every thing telling you it won't happen, it can't happen, and you need to give up.  I have said out loud "I take captive every thought that does not line up with what God says about me." I have shouted it, for years, sometimes minute  by minute, moment by moment.  Now maybe every few months, because I had to proclaim God's truth over my situations.  The wait is where the test is, it is where the AND of hope meed reality and it is scary my friends, it is terrifying, and it is so worth it.  I am a lady in waiting.  God has placed dreams and visions in my heart that still haven't  have not come to pass.  My heart isn't sick over it, it waits in the tension of wondering "if this is every going to happen" and knowing that "No good thing does he withhold"  my faith is grown here.  My faith is stretched here and I breath I wait and I embrace the tension.
  We have a charge as Christians to embrace the tension and be a light not be overwhelmed by the tensions.  I don't have answers but by standing in the wait place and extending God's truth rather than our fears I feel is a GREAT place to start.  Look for those areas in your life.  Look for ways to embrace the place of tension, and embrace exactly where God has you.