1 Corinthians 1: 19
For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. The intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
This is a verse that I have pondered ever since I read it for the first time years ago. I try not to be a proud person, but I take at least a little pride in being intelligent. I find a little bit of my self-identity in seeking wisdom and gathering knowledge. I have also had enough random misfortune in my life and been restored by God’s blessings enough times that I firmly believe that my wisdom is far, far lower than God’s and I need to trust Him in every situation.
Just like every human being, despite knowing all of that, I still wrestle with life’s difficult questions. One of my aunts is in her fifties and slowly losing a battle with cancer. She is a wonderful woman, a good mother and one of the pillars on which her family has constantly leaned. She doesn’t deserve to be in so much pain and possibly die so young. God is in control of the universe. He’s sovereign and supremely powerful. If he chose to do so, he could heal her. In fact, our family has been fervently praying over her for over a year and He is still letting her get worse. I am frustrated. Her father, my grandfather, who only just started attending church late in life, is angry with God. This will be the second of his four children that he is likely to outlive.
I thought about all of this last week while I was mowing my yard to prepare for our vacation. I didn’t want the grass to grow out of control during my absence and risk getting a nasty-gram or a fine from the neighborhood association. After mowing most of the yard I switched to the weed-whacker to trim the fence-line and somewhere along the way I nailed a big bullfrog and chopped its spinal cord in half. I didn’t even notice the thing until I was walking back towards the front of the house and saw something moving in the grass. The frog wasn’t actually moving, but I could see its lungs and heart pumping through the wound in its back. It would be dead within a few moments.
I instantly felt guilty for having killed it. What did it do to deserve death? It sat in my grass, ate a few flies and had no idea that a machine of destruction was bearing down on it. It wasn’t really a fair way to die and I had no means of communicating to the frog my grief that I was responsible. I also had no way of communicating to the frog the responsibility I had to tend to my lawn. In my world, it would have been irresponsible and (as far as the neighborhood association is concerned) immoral for me to ignore my yard and not go out and mow. In the world of the frog, I was just another predator bent on ending its life. My world is on such a bigger and more complex scale that there is no way the frog could ever understand the difference between us and the purpose of its death.
When that last thought went through my head, so did a verse from Isaiah. In chapter 55, verses 8-9, Isaiah writes:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the Earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
And in a moment God used a Frog to show me just how small and incapable of understanding Him I really am. No matter how much compassion I felt for the frog or how I tried to explain it to him, he could never understand me in any other term than murderer. My morality and responsibilities were just too far beyond what he was capable of understanding. Likewise, God tends to all of reality and has made decisions that are far, far beyond my ability to comprehend. No matter how much He loves me, no matter how much compassion he feels for me, God will still act according to his wisdom because He is so far beyond me. And, I will probably never understand it all.
So seek wisdom and keep praying, but don’t expect that the world will ever be as orderly as you wish or hope. Scripture says God causes the sun to shine on the wicked and the righteous. There is no formula we can apply to get everything right. In the end, we have to trust that God’s plan is so much higher than ours that the things we see as defeat, God counts as victories. Find the humility in your insignificance and let God direct your steps. If you need anymore convincing, let me give you more context to that verse from 1 Corinthians.
“18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
20Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.
26Brothers, 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. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29so that no one may boast before him. 30It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”
God used a lowly frog to shame my wisdom. I have no right to be a proud man. I am content in my insignificance and I hope that the only things I find to boast about are the righteousness, holiness and redemption I find in the Lord.
