Intro to Paradoxes

I am trying once again to get into the habit of blogging. My new idea to develop this habit is two fold: 1) To write a series of blogs as I do for the weekend messages and small groups at Church of the Nativity. (2) I have asked my personal growth team to hold me accountable to posting on Monday and Thursday of each week.

So today we start a series on Paradoxes. This idea has been marinating in my head since this past May. About three to four times a year I try to get away and spend a day with God to evaluate my life and simply get away from my duties at home and work. In May as I was driving away with God I thought of the following paradox of humanity: we desire to have meaning and yet need to be totally insignificant. We'll dive in later into this paradox, but let me briefly explain it.

All of us want our life to matter, for our existence to have significance. No one says, "I hope I am a total waste of a life." We desire to make a difference. I know that is deep in me. I want my kids to need me. I want my wife to need me. I hope work believes they need me so that I keep my job and pay my bills. On the other hand, as I drove away from work and family on a beautiful May day I thought how great is was to not be so important that I couldn't get away. In other words, I'm glad I'm not God and it is very freeing to know I'm not that important. We feel oppressed when we feel like we can't get away from work or home. Unfortunately, many people do live enslaved to this feeling.

And as I call this a paradox, I'm not even sure that is the right word, but it is the best word I can identify at the moment. It is the reality that truth is full bodied. There is a balance to it that we must understand in order to fully comprehend a subject.

What do you think? What other paradoxes of life have you observed?