March 10: Of Foolishness

Numbers 14:1-15:16

Mark 14:53-72

Psalm 53:1-6

Proverbs 11:4

Psalm 53:1 - The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."

Fool | noun - a person who acts unwisely or imprudently; a person who is duped or imposed upon; verb - trick or deceive (Oxford Living Dictionaries)

There is a song I enjoy so much I actually like three versions of it.  It is "What a Fool Believes".  The Doobie Brothers sang the original; Kenny Loggins had a great version in concert; but Aretha Frankly just completely blew the song away.  The melody was catchy, but the lyrics were amazing - the story of a man who keeps revisiting a past relationship to keep the hope of reunification alive.  He deludes himself into thinking she still loves him.  As the song says, "what a fool believes, he sees".

As Christians, we are accused of deluding ourselves into believing God exists.  As someone very dear to me told me, they couldn't see Him, He wasn't tangible.  And so they couldn't believe He existed.  How was I so sure I wasn't deluding myself with an old book of fiction?

In Pastor Larry Osborne's foreword to the Pastor Mark Clark's book "The Problem of God: Answering a Skeptic's Challenges to Christianity", he makes an interesting point: "before we dismiss Jesus…and Christianity as mere ancient myth…or a set of oppressive and failed moral standards, we need to first test our assumptions against the facts and then let the facts speak for themselves.  The same goes for those of us who call ourselves Jesus followers…Faith can't turn a falsehood into truth."

Point well taken.  However, I find that my problem isn't that proof of God's existence doesn't exist; it's that, in my desire to gratify my sinful desires, I choose to ignore the evidence.  Worse than allowing myself to be duped by someone else, I am the greater fool that dupes myself.  

And where is that proof?  Why, everywhere!  Consider the perfect balance of conditions that permitted the genesis of life and its persistence.   Or the dance of the rock we stand on, that spins a thousand miles per hour, and speeds through space at around 67,000 miles per hour…and doesn't bump into much, despite the fact it has another rock a sixth the size of it spinning around it once every thirty days or so.  Or the medically inexplicable recovery of a friend, in a week long coma, vitals fading, doctors helpless who, after a night of fervent prayer by our church, turned the corner to a full recovery.  There is proof everywhere.  I just choose not to see it, or not to see it for what it is.

Father, have mercy on this fool for his willful delusion, for choosing to overlook or ignore the manifestations of Your existence and power.  Open my eyes and soften my heart that I may no longer be that fool that says, in word and deed, in thought and feeling, "There is no God".