Thoughts on Foolish Things

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things - and the things that are not - to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.
1 Corinthians 1:26-29

The foolish things. God chose the foolish things. Very interesting indeed. Tonight as my husband and I were spending time together in prayer before the Lord, I heard within my spirit these words, "I have chosen the foolish things to confound the wise." It was as if the very air was being sucked out of my chest as I began to feel the crushing weight of those words ringing inside of me.

How many times have we set aside an impression or a command we thought we heard from the Lord with the excuse, "The Lord surely wouldn't want me to do that. That is silly. That is foolish. That just makes no sense." So, we walk away, comforted with the fact that "that" particular thought must have come from our own imaginations. Or, how many times have we seen a person of questionable looks or questionable social status and thought, "He seems rather strange. What he is doing seems a bit foolish, radical, or silly. He must have some kind of problem or disorder."

Or, how about, we hear of blind eyes being opened, the deaf hearing, the lame walking, or the dead being raised and our first response is one of total skepticism. "Hmm, must have been some medical breakthrough that really caused that to happen" or "they probably only thought that person was dead." "That is just too foolish-sounding to be true."

Hmmm...makes me wonder how often we miss the Lord while we walk in all of our intellectual wisdom, our humanistic and rationalistic worldview. Often, since we don't understand something, or we have never experienced it, we count it as foolish or purely emotional. Often, we see people with no "credentials" to be speaking on behalf of the Lord, and we say, "Who gave that person the right to speak that way, to try and heal or help others in that way?" "What background do they have in order that I should listen to them?"

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:18 "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being save it is the power of God."

Who is qualified to bring the message of the cross to a lost world? The Lord qualifies the weak, the needy, the despised, the rejected, the poor, the persecuted. He is the Qualifier and no one else. God the Father is not impressed with our wisdom. He is impressed with His own perfect wisdom that comes from above. Let's not put limits on our faith. Let's not disregard what we might consider foolish without first asking ourselves, "Could this be a foolish thing that God could use to confound the wise for His glory?" Could we be that weak, despised and rejected thing that God would use, for His purposes, for His plans? I must say, I sincerely hope so.