Paradox

(def.):

a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true:

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.”                                                                Isaiah 55:9

One of the things, maybe the biggest factor, in my admiration of how God works, is the way that the Bible turns things upside down. Actually, it is the way that the Bible describes how God turns things upside down. Let me give you a few of the many examples in the Bible:

• The last shall be first (Matthew 20:16)
• The poor of the world to be rich (James 2:5)
• The meek shall inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5)
• When I am weak, then I am strong (II Corinthians 12:10)
• Rejoice in suffering (James 1:2)
• The weakest and youngest are to supplant the older and stronger (David chosen as future King); (the story of Jacob and Esau)
• The story of David and Goliath (I Samuel 17)
• Rich to be humbled (James 1:10)
• Those who lead must first be servants of others (Matthew 20:27)

A reasonable understanding of the ministry of Jesus was that he came to turn religious thinking on its head. He criticized the religious leaders of the day because they had lost the spirit of the law, and the message of the heart of God.

It is not just these isolated instances (cited above) that point to the truth of how God works. The fabric that they weave in the Bible is one of paradox. What we logically think is the way things should work, turn out to be, in God’s economy, exactly backwards.

So, maybe it was the rebel in me that was drawn to this type of thinking when I was a teenager and young adult. But maybe now it is the truth of how I believe God works that keeps me thinking that way.

Prayer: Lord, your ways are higher than our ways, Amen