Contradictions

Life is full of contradictions isn't it. You can be home but yet feel homeless, you can be busy while feeling bored. Some feel poplar while feeling lonely, others are believers in God yet have many doubts.

It can cause us to feel frustrated, irritated and even discouraged.

But there is another response to the contradictions of life that come our way.

Contradictions can move us to God.

We try so hard to take the mystery out of life, don't we. We want all the dots to be connected, everything to be in its place. Sometimes we even feel that way about God.

God created us, and know we feel we have to create God, in our own image.

Even God himself can seem to be a contradiction. He is holy, yet loves us unconditionally. He will do everything He can do see that we connect with Him, yet gives us a free will, the ability to choose.

I suppose what I am saying is that we must become comfortable with the contradictions of life and not obsessively concerned about figuring them out.

After all, isn't that what makes life exciting?

Let me leave you with a quote from National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.

"We are living through a time of testing and consequence—and praying that our wisdom and will are equal to the work before us. And it is at times like these that we are reminded of a paradox: that it is a privilege to struggle. A privilege to struggle for what is right and true. A privilege to struggle for freedom over tyranny. A privilege, even, to struggle with the most difficult and profound moral choices.

American slaves used to sing, "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen—Glory, Hallelujah!" Growing up, I would often wonder at the seeming contradiction contained in this line. But as I grew older, I came to learn that there is no contradiction at all.

I believe this same message is found in the Bible in Romans 5, where we are told to "rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us."