True Absurdities

“Truth is true, absurdities and all.”
Loren Thornburg

Life is full of paradoxes. You have to spend money to make money; you break your muscles down to build them up; your giving is what fills you up. A paradox is something that sounds absurd, but is actually true. More and more I see that life is full of paradoxes. It is in the hard things of life, which bring sadness that I come to know more of joy and enjoyment. It is when we allow ourselves to be hurt, needy, broken, and weak that we can be most thankful and find joy in healing, provision, and strength. It sounds rather absurd to me that to know joy I must know much heartache; to know strength I must know weakness; and to know more I must know less. It makes me wonder how many other things that I think are absurd are actually true. What we think is disaster may be the thing that is saving us. Life has a paradoxical way of bringing life from death.

“Our hearts ache but we always have joy. We are poor, but we give spiritual riches to others. We own nothing and yet we have everything.”
2 Corinthians 6: 10 NLT

The last shall be first, the first shall be last, those who are poor shall be rich, those who own nothing have everything. Even more, God brought life from death taking crucifixion on a cross of His only Son to bring abundant life for all who believe. Following Jesus is full of paradoxes. He doesn’t think the way that we think, work the way we work, or see things the way that we do. Paul exhorts the Corinthians to take heart in the nature of our paradoxical God. Following Jesus requires allowing His absurdities to be our truth. It means seeing our crises and trusting that God can and will work a blessing in it where we thought no blessing could be found. No longer seeing things from our perspective, but from over His shoulder where the poor are spiritually rich and those with nothing live lives where they find they have everything. It’s a process and it takes time, but the more we seek His ways the more we find what once was absurd has become truth; what once was our disaster has become our blessing; and what once was our death has become our saving.