What an Irony it is to be a Christian. It just doesn't make sense! A perfect God associating with imperfect people; an immortal soul living in a mortal body; a God who returns mercy for grief.

Paradox bounces like a football, intrigues like a mystery novel and forces a confrontation between reality and my own twisted thought world. God uses paradox as a two-edged sword. With one edge, he clears a path for seekers to know and understand him. With the other, he slays the depraved thoughts of his enemies.

By God's decree, his follower finds the top of the kingdom at the bottom; he becomes something by becoming nothing; he does best what he can't possibly do. The disciple mourns to find comfort and inherits the earth by not seizing it. He chooses the unseen over the seeable. He gains freedom by becoming a slave.

A.W. Tozer adds that the believer "empties himself in order to be full, admits he is wrong so he can be declared right, goes down in order to get up, is strongest when he is weakest, richest when he is poorest and happiest when he feels worst. He dies so he can live, forsakes in order to have, gives away so he can keep, sees the invisible, hears the inaudible and knows that which passeth knowledge." (The Root of Righteousness, 156)

The cross of Christ itself comes with paradox -- that something so ugly can beautify God. "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.' Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ... For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom." (I Corinthians 1:18-20, 25 NIV)

It should come, than, as no surprise that a good God chooses to save wretched people like us. God saves us by his grace, not our own goodness. He gives us the opposite of what we deserve. Christ deserved life but got death; we deserved death but got life. How ironic that he got what we deserved and we got what he deserved.

God's wisdom and love amaze me anew every day. The holy Creator found a way to love this unholy creature right into heaven. It doesn't make sense, but that's why I'm so thankful.

My friend, embrace paradox; it is the path to eternal life!