Living the Contradictory Life

It was a quiet fall day when I felt it.

I was out walking, surrounded by the kind of beauty that takes your breath away. The sky was a deep, unwavering blue. The leaves—lit up in shades of fiery orange—burned against it. Complete opposites on the color wheel. Contradictory. And yet, they didn’t clash.

They completed one another.

The contrast didn’t confuse—it compelled.

And I felt the Lord whisper something I’ll never forget:

“I need you to live like this, a contradictory life. Not just to be different for the sake of being different, but for the sake of your call—and the sake of My Kingdom.”

The Call to Live in Contrast

We are called to a life of holy contradiction.

To love the world God created—with its beauty, its people, its potential—

and yet hate the world in the sense of worldliness—the systems, values, and patterns that distort God’s truth.

To be filled by gathering with likeminded believers,

and yet not lose our edge, our message, or our mission by staying insulated from the world that desperately needs the light we carry.

To gain a deeper knowing of who God is—

not just in the safety of shared faith,

but in the stretch of difficult conversations, unfamiliar places, and moments where comfort gives way to calling.

It’s a contradictory life.

And Jesus prayed that we would live it.

Rooted in the Words of Jesus —

John 17

In one of the most intimate moments we’re given in all of Scripture, Jesus prays for His disciples—both the ones who followed Him then and all who would come after. And He doesn’t ask for their escape.

“I do not ask that You take them out of the world, but that You keep them from the evil one.”

—John 17:15

He could have asked for safety. For protection through distance. But He doesn’t. He asks that we be protected in the world, and then says something even more daring:

“As You sent Me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”

—John 17:18

Jesus doesn’t rescue us from the tension.

He sends us right into the middle of it—

rooted in truth, refined in contrast.

When Ministry Becomes Too Comfortable

It’s easy to assume that being surrounded by ministry and good Christian community means we’ve “arrived.” We feel full. We feel safe. We feel seen.

But the longer I sit only in safe spaces,

the more I feel a slow drift into something that almost feels… purposeless.

Because we weren’t meant to be surrounded by truth just to nod in agreement.

We were meant to carry it—to speak it, to live it, to embody it in places where it may be resisted or misunderstood.

I don’t want to lose my message by only speaking to people who already believe it.

I don’t want to lose my sense of mission by only living in echo chambers.

The Gospel Was Always Meant to Move

Romans 10:14 asks plainly:

“How can they believe in the One of whom they have not heard?”

If I’m only pouring into people who already know Jesus, then I’ve stopped living fully into the sending Jesus prayed over me.

He didn’t just gather His followers. He equipped them and sent them into contrast.

Into discomfort.

Into difference.

Not to condemn the world—but to carry the message of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:18–20)

The Message in the Leaves

That day in the fall, as I walked under the burning trees and looked up at the steady sky, I understood what He was showing me:

Blue and orange.

Heaven and earth.

Calm and fire.

Rooted and sent.

The contradiction wasn’t a flaw. It was a design.

That’s how the Kingdom works.

That’s how we are meant to live.

Final Reflection

To live this kind of life means we will often feel the tension.

We’ll ache to belong—but won’t quite fit.

We’ll be misunderstood. Misread. Uncomfortable.

But that ache isn’t failure.

It’s the evidence that we’re living the kind of life Jesus prayed for.

We were never meant to blend in.

But we also weren’t meant to stand out for our own sake.

We live in contrast to reveal the Kingdom—

not because we are trying to be different, but because we’re trying to be faithful.

So if you feel the tension of living between two worlds,

if you feel full but not poured out,

if you feel called to love what God loves but grieved by what breaks His heart—

You’re not doing it wrong.

You’re walking in the contradiction He prayed you’d live.