Fools

“We are fools for Christ’s sake”  1 Corinthians 4:10

Fools – “You’re crazy.  How can you believe that God will do anything about this?”  “You’re living a fairy tale.  Wake up and smell the roses!”  Or as someone once said to me, “Don’t wait for a miracle.  It’s not going to happen!”

Have you ever felt like your faith just didn’t make any sense?  Have you every said to God (quite privately, of course), “God, I just feel like such an idiot.  I’m counting on you but everything and everybody says I’m just being stupid.”  Well, if these feelings have ever crossed your mind, you’re in good company.  Paul tells his readers that he and the apostles were considered morons for their belief.  That’s the word, moros.  It means more than stupid.  It means morally worthless, having neither heart nor head knowledge of reality.  Paul was called this name many times.  Intellectuals thought he was insane to preach the death of God on a cross.  Festus considered Paul mentally deranged and morally repugnant for even speaking about crucifixion.  People told him that his faith was just a “pipe-dream” – a drugged out hallucination.

But Paul had a different vision.  He saw that God took what the world considered worthless and stupid and made it into the glory of His presence.  All of the world’s values turned upside-down.  Happiness is desperation, grief, hunger, oppression and loss.  Joy in suffering and trials.  It just doesn’t make any sense – unless you have God’s perspective.

That’s the hard part, isn’t it?  Keeping God’s perspective.  With so much of the alien world surrounding us, trying every which way to push us into the mold of “what you see is what you get”, it is hard to maintain that view from heaven.  Paul knew how hard it was when he was beaten, thrown in jail, run out of town and threatened.  Paul gave up everything the world considered “sane” in order to live a life of divine insanity.  If Jesus was crazy to die for people who hated him, then Paul was ready to join the asylum with Him. 

Today the world will try very hard to push you away from God’s perspective.  Deadlines, pressures, chaos, frenzy and demands will all work their normal insanity on you, trying to get you to say, “I guess you were right.  God doesn’t care about me.”  Resist.  Insanity only appears sane when there is a lot of it around.  And there is certainly a lot of it around.  Look to the Creator.  He is the only One Who really knows the score.

Today:  Just one thing.  “Father, help me keep my eyes on You when the world screams that I am just being a fool.”