To be a person of faith in Christ is to sense that our lives are warping towards redemption, even as new tragedies and everyday stresses continue to shatter and press upon our lives.

“Christ is the Beginning, the firstborn from the dead. . . .
God wanted all perfection to be found in Christ,
and all things to be reconciled to God through Christ–
Everything in heaven and everything in earth–
when Christ made peace by dying on the cross” (Colossians 1)

Because even now in Christ is held the perfection of resurrection from unjust death, the recognition of a pattern towards redemption isn’t so much about feeling its full reality now, but about Noticing — noticing a movement in and under the daily leaves of our lives. And this is not an escapist noticing, but one which in prayer turns every shape of anxiety and failure in our inner and shared lives into the attentive presence of the suffering and rising One, who authored and authors our existence.

The one who judges us at the Last Day also bears all our burdens, the consequences of both our sins and our having been sinned against. The accountability for our lives is wed with grace, demanding we learn both repentant obedience to the voice of God and the peace that passes all understanding — a peace that passes through and stands by our fretting stressed selves.

Redemption trails our every step, even as it’s out there ahead of us, re-doing and re-shaping our doings and our shapings, wherever they generate harm instead of joy and goodness.

Do you sense this too?