Paradoxicalness

It is sort of confusing.

I was once an engineering major looking towards a career as a design engineer with a Research and Development department.  Two years later, I was called by God to minister to youth.  I was then an engineering major looking for a youth pastor job with a distaste for my previous engineering dream.  Two years later, I turned down a youth pastor job and accepted a design engineering job with a Research and Development department.

Poop.

Welcome to my paradoxicalness.

Now one may ask, what would make a fairly sane (go with me) man with above average intelligence in his early twenties to live with such reckless abandon?

God.

Yes...God.

God made me do this sort of crazy life choices...and the funny thing is that I am okay with it.

You may say, "Stephen, you have been jerked around like a rag doll and made to make such idiotic life decisions.  Why are you okay with this?"

Because I'm a dude...and He is God.

(Awkward Silence)

"So you just summed up the explanation for the activities of the last four years of your life with: 'Because I'm a dude...and He is God'?"

Yup.

"Really?  All the major decisions in your life...dude...God?"

Yup.

"Sure?"

Yup.

"Alright."


¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.                                Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV) 

A Moose Named Greg

The moose was confused.  He had left his pile of pineapples under the licorice tree not ten minutes ago and now they were gone.  The moose, also known as Greg, could not fathom this recent occurrence.  He had been saving his toenail clippings for almost two weeks so he would have enough to trade with the blind goat at the market for some of his famous pineapples.  Greg was never sure what the near-sighted ram did with all the clippings but he knew he liked what he got in return.  (For those that do not know of the pineapples in question, these were Pepscue Pineapples.  Pepscue Pineapples grew only on the underbelly of a particular elephant named Frieda.  Frieda has the first and only recorded case of Pepscuitis.  Pepscuitis results in the infected to ooze a slimy green mucus that had the strong smell of toe jam and mint but contained the needed minerals and nutrients to support the rare Pepscue Pinapples.  The blind goat, ironically, knew where to find Frieda.)  So here was Greg out two weeks worth of toenail clippings and a pile of Pepscue Pineapples.  He was altogether distraught at the whole situation which is understandable.  After all, Pepscue Pineapples are the rarest pineapples in the world (see above "parenthesized" explanation) but taste oddly of sweaty sock juice which Greg finds delicious.  

So Greg was now confronted with the dilemma of what to do next.  He wanted to find his beloved pineapples but he could abandon his kids (Greg is currently the adoptive father of a nest full of light blue eggs, surprisingly the exact size of billiard balls.  He is the nurturing type.).  Thus Greg did what any loving father would do when faced with a choice between family and food: he improvised.  He scooped up the nest into his antlers and went in search his pineapples.  Not an hour later, Greg found his Pepscue Pineapples moving across the forest floor, yes moving.  Obviously shocked, he scampered over to his mobile snack (taking great care for the little lives on his head naturally).  Greg saw upon closer observation that the pineapples were being carried across the forest floor by an army of Bolivian Jelly ants (great on toast).  Being a peaceful and logical animal, Greg, now grateful for those two semesters of Bolivian in college, struck up a conversation with the produce laden insects.  Come to find out, the ants were simply hungry and had found these food orbs laying on the ground.  They had taken them because they did not believe them to belong to anyone.  When Greg offered to provide them with some berries on the top of a nearby bush as a trade, the ants were more than willing to oblige   The trade was made, the ants continued on, and Greg turned around to go home.

As stories of this nature tend to go, at that exact moment the eggs on top of Greg's head began to hatch.  Greg excitedly put the nest (which was resting next to the recovered Pepscue Pineapples in his antlers) on the ground and watched with anticipation.  Greg could not wait to meet his kids.  The eggs continued to crack into a variety of spider web shapes.  One of the tops of the eggs suddenly popped off and Greg came face to face with the newest member of his family.  Greg then realized, with a slight grin, that he was the proud father of five baby Blue Pinch-toed Pygmy Rhinoceroses.


1 Corinthians 12:4-11 (NIV)
⁴ There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.
⁵ There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.
⁶ There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.
⁷ Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.
⁸ To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit,
⁹ to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit,
¹⁰ to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues.
¹¹ All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.




We have all been given different gifts.  We all have the same God.  One of my gifts is creativity.  What's yours and how are you using it to glorify the name of the Lord Jesus Christ?