The Creative Tension

We cannot go back to a pristine and innocent time where humanity was free and without sin. Nor can we lunge into the future where God's kingdom is fully established and righteousness and peace will reign supreme. Both the beginning and the future are denied for us, for we are in the middle. Yet both affect us, for that innocent beginning reminds us that sin and dis­obedience are not intrinsic to our lives and the future beckons us with the promise of God's new world. This does not make life in the mid­dle undesirable; it only makes it full of promise and tension.