Holy Discontent Revisited

Mark 7:1-8

By Rev. Dr. Scott Seidler, Senior Pastor

Those words, “holy discontent”, need to be a ready phrase in every Christian’s vocabulary.  The sentiment expresses a very real, soul-felt friction—a disconnect between what is and what should be. 

A Christian couple knows the self-giving gold standard of Christian marriage, but can hardly muster between them a civil conversation after the kids go to bed.

A high school junior tastes the first winds of freedom that come with an extended curfew, but learns first-hand the temptations which linger when school parties go long.

What is and what should be—that differential is where the measure of one’s Christianity is determined.  God invites us to a holy discontent until that differential is obliterated.

Jesus, through the prophet Isaiah, observed, “People honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”  With this observation comes the invitation, again, to uninterrupted holy discontent.

Until the difference between our hearts and our lips is but a breath, we are at odds with the God of Heaven and Earth.  Christ will ultimately deliver us from this God-forsaken difference in the resurrection at the end of days.  Nevertheless, the end of our earthly days—the purpose for which we still live—is in service to holy discontent until what is and what should be are one and the same.