Optimal Grip

Faith Takes It

Leading a good Christian life, one that adheres well to the full faith, isn’t simply about getting doctrine and stances right. It is of course more about one’s relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Importantly, relationships differ from knowledge. Relationships can have more to do with optimal grip than with positions or stances. Holding a relationship too loosely has obvious hazards. The one on the relationship’s other end may rightly see the loose grip as carelessness, distraction, and lack of devotion. Hold fast to your friends. Hold faster to your most significant other.

But optimal grip doesn’t just mean holding hard and fast to the other under all circumstances. Optimal grip can also mean not holding on quite so hard at times. Grip a golf club or baseball bat too tightly, and the swing loses its power and accuracy. Grip a dance partner too tightly, and the constrained moves become awkward, controlled, and jerky. Relationship’s fluidity and freedom, its joy and spontaneity, have a lot to do with not holding too tightly. Letting a partner act as they are and should can mean letting loose just a bit more than one wants to hold. And in the slight loosening of the grip, not letting go entirely but just allowing the other to touch and hold optimally in relationship, the union becomes stronger, not weaker.

As Christians, we properly hold fast to Jesus Christ. He is our savior and shelter in a storm, to whom we hold most tightly. At the same time, the dance in which he leads us requires at times that we not try to squeeze life out of him but instead let him pour life into us in the measure he knows best. Frequent prayer, even beseeching and passionate prayer, is good. Making demands of him after our own distorted desires may not be. Trusting Jesus can mean loosening one’s grip to the point of accepting his best offer, just as trusting Jesus can mean tightening one’s grip. Seek optimality, not excess. He knows what we need, and he knows how to conduct a sweet relationship.