John at 25 years old, was making a six figure salary working for a bank in New York City. He had it all; money, power, women, whatever he wanted, but he was empty. He wasted his life between parties, drugs, and alcohol. Even though this man had everything a young man could ask for, he felt empty. One day he came into contact with the Bible. He found in it the truth and the remedy to his deep emptiness. He eventually left all the money and fame to become a poor, happy missionary. Why do we never know what makes us happy?
To conclude this series of blogs (we will be jumping into a new topic), I want to share an idea close to my heart; Christianity and its many paradoxes. When I first began to understand Christ, one aspect of Him always puzzled me. He had everything, all the glory, honor, riches and power. He was omnipotent and omniscient, not even constrained to the laws of science such as gravity, time or dimension. He was God. But because of one planet in one solar system, on the edge of one galaxy, He decided to degrade himself to the power of a gnat.
That's just the beginning. God, in human form, was killed to give those who deserve death, life. We live because He died. He clothed himself in humanity's filthy rags so we could wear His robe of righteousness. When I grappled with this reality, my heart could hardly understand Why. Why did he do all of this if He didn't have to? Our salvation would cost Him everything; and He didn't have to. He could've let us receive the consequences of our choices. Why did He suffer so much? Why did He subject himself to pain, that was a foreign entity to him. Before us, there was no pain.
For us, Christianity means letting go of everything to gain everything. Jesus says follow me and I will give you rest but he also says pick up your cross and follow. He tells us to pick up discomfort, pain, trials and he promises that in them we will be fulfilled. When we vow to give our lives to Christ, we acknowledge that we are nothing, but worth more than all the money on this Earth could buy. In Christ, our most hated degraded facet becomes our strength. In Christ, by setting aside our dreams, He gives us our greatest desires.
Higher than the highest is God's ideal for his children. Our theme in itself is a paradox because there isn't such a thing as higher than highest. God's way is not the most clear, logical, normal way but it's the best way. I hope you've seen in these blogs a snapshot of God in His limitless, deeper-than-deepest, better-than-best, and higher-than-highest attributes. I hope you've seen that even though we are the least among created beings, the gnats on the face the universe, with Jesus we can be everything we never dreamed of.