Redemption Now

I've been accused of being a perfectionist. When I was younger, this was manifest in the form of striving to get the best grades, to get into the best colleges, or to get the status symbol of the day, whatever that may be. As an adult, I find myself seeking to strengthen my relationships with others, to help the lost and oppressed, to find ways to make myself a better, more Christ-like person.

While I did grow up with a works-based mindset and belief system, my desire for the rightness of things hasn't changed as I've learned to accept and embrace grace. People tell me I'm a dreamer, that I'm not in the current world, that to expect things to be right and good here is unrealistic. Sorry if that's you, but I think that's a load of junk. Too many of us are settling for the present and easy life in front of us, instead of embracing our God-given identity and purpose. Why can't we start redeeming our world now?

I just finished reading Simply Christian by N.T. Wright, one of my favorite Christian writers. His premise in this book is that the beauty of the world, our sense of justice, our relationships with others, and our inner sense of spirituality should drive us to Christian faith. In the midst of our wonderful but broken, sinful world, these four things stand out. Further, only through a relationship with Christ can we begin to redeem these values and begin the redemption of our world. The remainder of the book describes how, as Christians, we can seek a relationship with Christ and begin our world's renewal now by living as kingdom people.

The book (and all of Wright's books that I've read so far, really) resonate so much with me...I feel the incredible goodness of the world, but also the ramifications of the fall. Life is so good, but yet not as it should be. It's nothing you can exactly put your finger upon, but a nagging sense that there is more, that there should be more possibility and potential in the here and now. It's a vague sense of heartbreak because something is missing, if we only knew what.

Since reading Surprised by Hope a few months ago, I've starting thinking much more about our bodily resurrection and the New Jerusalem. I'm normally a relatively patient person, but I'm becoming exceedingly impatient for the total renewal and redemption of our world and myself. Things will become totally right. Justice will finally be served. The world will beautiful without pain, sorrow, or fear. Our relationships with each other, and with God, will be as they were meant to be.

As Christians, we seemed called to live in this crazy, confusing, rewarding tension of knowing what is to come, but not being able to yet taste and see. Wright says,

"...it is time to take up our proper role, our fully human role, as agents, heralds, and stewards of the new day that is dawning. That, quite simply, is what it means to be Christian: to follow Jesus Christ into the new world, God's new world, which he has thrown open before us."

So, yes, I will continue to see that my relationships, my world, and even myself are not as they should be. I will work with all I have, with God's grace, to begin the renewal and righting of what is in my power to right. I will pray for the redemption of the people, creation, and relationships around me. I will embrace the tension of now, but seek the ultimate peace of the future.

Some say that makes me a perfectionist. Maybe.

I say it makes me a kingdom person.

What kind of person are you?