Day 217

Ezra 1:1–2:70; 1 Corinthians 1:18–2:5; Psalm 27:7-14; Proverbs 20:22-23

HAVE YOU EVER had a moment when you felt as if all the talk of faith in Jesus was nothing more than foolish nonsense? The apostle Paul affirmed and acknowledged that feeling as he launched into his letter to the Corinthians in our reading today:

Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.

Paul’s point in writing this was simple —God cannot be found within the confines of human intellect or experience alone. Nor can His ways be categorized with human reason alone. Our searches through these avenues will be weak at best. To find God, we will have to take a blind leap of faith —a leap that may look foolish to some. But the foolish leap will turn us right side up and reveal the true foolishness we’ve been living within all along. As frustrating or confusing as this might seem, this reality reveals how spiritually disoriented humanity has become. Paul explained it like this:

This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength. . . . God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.

The truth is that we don’t know all we think we do about anything —including God. God cannot be co-opted to become part of our lives while we remain in control as our own sovereign (our own god). And indeed, it seems foolish to give up control of ourselves and believe in what we cannot see. But this very foolishness pulls us to where our strength ends —and where we encounter God.

Our faith isn’t ever going to make perfect intellectual sense. And yet the only way life itself is ever going to make any sense at all is in the presence of God, through faith. In this light, we realize that the choice is ultimately about what we are going to put our faith in. Will it be in what we think we know? Or can we acknowledge that we know very little and believe that if we seek God, we will find Him? The decisions we make today will be evidence of where our faith really lies.

PRAYER:

My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.” And my heart responds, “LORD, I am coming.”