Fencing

Building our faith, or discipling, is a bit like building fence. We have these theological concepts that form the corner post or strainers. Concepts, on hand that God reigns, Christ is king and on the other hand, Jesus came to serve and was crucified. These seemingly opposing ideas give us hymns like "The Servant King". But I imagine a fence. The opposing ideas at each end; the divine Jesus on one end and the human Jesus on the other. Our faith is wire that stretches in between. If we have one end but not the other the wire is propped up on one end and one end and lays down at the other and you don't have a fence. If you don't have well developed corner strainers then the will not hold the weight of the wire and will eventually sag and the result again is no fence. Both ends must be strong, then the faith wire must be held taut between the two. Too tight, the wire breaks. Not tight enough, it sags and again no fence. But wait, there's more! Between the two corners are many little ideas, I'll call them posts. They must line up between the two. They do not need to be level or even too straight to begin with. But if a post is out of alignment for a long time it will wear on the wire and create rust and the wire may break. So it is imperative that you walk the fence from time to time; regularly, starting at one end and check each post for weakness moving posts and adjusting wire along the way. A good fence draws admiration to the property it creates the boundary for. A good fence can stand alone for some time. It can take the normal pressure of livestock but also can often withstand flood, blizzard, and small fires, in Australia called cool burns. After huge disasters fences need repair. We need to spend time again starting at one end walking to the other repairing the damage. Rarely, though do you have to repair the corners, if they were well built in the beginning. Yesterday, I took my congregation fencing. Some even seemed to enjoy it.