This is not a new question. But it is still relevant.
It was stirred up in me again as a I read this quote in my church history class reading:
“In a sense, what was at stake in the controversy over Pietism was whether the Christian faith should simply serve to sanction common morality, or should rather call believers to a different sort of life. Orthodox preaching took for granted that God requires of believers nothing more than correct doctrine and a decent life. The Pietists insisted on the contrast between what society expects of its members and what God requires of the faithful. This has always been an uncomfortable challenge for a comfortable church.” p. 261
I wonder sometimes how comfortable my church and faith life is. The more I read about the German Pietists… the more I think I would have agreed with them on several levels. I really dig this guy named Philip Spener and love the stuff he pushed back on in his culture.
However, I constantly find in me a struggle to be content without being complacent. Contentment is a peace that comes from God. Complacency is apathy that does not.
I want to live a life with my family and ministry and kids that is content. I don’t want to be driven by consumerism and anxiety and busyness and the like. Instead I want to live a life that experiences an unexplainable confidence in God’s will and strength so that it can truly be at rest in the storms of life. But the truth is, I don’t think I truly achieve this very often.
I also don’t want to be complacent. I’ve rarely been accused of this because my drive in life and I tend to just go go go. I have an internal angst for laziness and complacency when it comes to work ethic, so some of it is just not in my DNA. However, that doesn’t mean I’m not complacent. I can get complacent towards working out. I can get complacent towards truly growing in my faith and not just sustaining. I can get complacent in my parenting and marriage and ministry. I can get complacent towards the poor or towards the world around me. And when I do, regardless of what I’m complacent towards… I agree it sucks.
Sometimes, the best thing I can do is to embrace God’s call into an uncomfortable challenge for a comfortable me.
