What is it called when little things are big things? When children understand more than adults? When the ones pushing and resilient are the ones exhausted and trapped at the end of the line? When the ones timid and broken are the ones confident and secure at the front of the line? When the first are last and the last are first? When reputation is sacrificed, but respect is gained? When the sun stands still and a teenager falls to his knees and the latter is greater than the first? When genius counts for less than dedication? What is this enigmatic world called?

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 In the artificial light of the subway station stands a child. You peek around the corner, watching, wanting to see his face. But he doesn’t turn. 

 You follow his back through the streets of the city. He darts through alleys that stink of cigarette smoke and poverty. Filth coats his jacket as he wiggles between two walls and you follow, breathing hard. 

 He stumbles and you resist the urge to catch him, only to stumble yourself. There’s a figure stretched out on the ground, eyes rolled back in his head. You recoil in horror but realize he’s in a drug-induced stupor and he deserves to lie here on the street. You leave him and hope a softer heart comes along. 

 You’ve lost sight of the boy. You run frantically, bile rising in your throat. You can’t afford to lose him. You still don’t know who he is, and somehow, this is vitally important. 

 Finally, you spot him standing underneath a bridge, scratching something out on a wall littered with graffiti. He runs on ahead before you reach him, but you pause, putting a hand on the wall to steady yourself. He drew a crude outlining of a sun. Ironic, you think. My eyes still haven’t adjusted to the darkness under here. 

 Eventually the boy circles back to the subway station. You have no idea why he wandered all over the city without accomplishing anything. His face—somehow his face has always been in shadow. 

 As you follow him, you experience a strange sense of de javu. But why? You ask yourself. Your life couldn’t be more different than the boy’s. You have a thousand responsibilities, dozens of reminders on your phone, boxes to check and goals to reach. You have a house and a car and a bank account, and the boy has none of these. 

 It’s getting darker. People flood the station, and some ragged souls huddle in the shadows. The boy is making his bed with one faded blanket. Unconscious of the grime underneath him, he pillows his head on his arms and falls asleep. You could almost envy him for his innocence. 

 You creep closer. Your hands are clammy and you berate yourself for being a fool. Gently, you lift the blanket from his face. 

 You yank your hand back as if you had been burned. The boy lying in the filth of the subway station is yourself. 

 You stumble over to a bench, your eyes unable to focus. Somehow, you had known it all along. Underneath your ironed, middle-class exterior, is a little boy running scared. You’ve been lost and aimless, a growing skeptic. You’ve been hurt too many times. Every day, you get out of bed and try to hide the graffiti scribbled over your heart. 

 This painful paradox is almost too much for you to bear. That after a lifetime of struggle to shape your identity into something praise-worthy, you discover you’re nothing but a street rat. 

 But the child drew a sun in the darkness. Another impossible paradox, that someone could see light in the middle of all the squalor. This gives you a sliver of hope, which, you realize, is yet another irony. That coming face to face with one’s decrepit soul gives one hope for change in the future. 

 Standing in the fluorescent glare of the subway station, you decide it’s time to stop running. It’s time to go home. 

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So what is this logic-defeating enigma called? It’s a kingdom whose king is a carpenter, whose subjects are broken sons and daughters—where one must die in order to live. It’s called God’s kingdom.