“For it is written,
‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart’.”
~1 Corinthians 1:19 (NRSV).
The world at large has no explanation for the not-so-common-place miracle. It also has no answer for the God-vested power manifest in a tsunami, earthquake or flood. Because of this, the world reacts in a range of ways from ambivalent mystification to vehement frustration.
And when we throw into this mix the confounding realities of relationships and communication, as well as the ‘management’ of the personal desires, we can easily see that humanity cannot work God out.
Our Lord has designed and constructed a very inconvenient wisdom.
Christ’s Cross – the Perfect Illustration
That someone can be ‘saved’ by belief in a guy who was nailed to a cross nearly two-thousand years ago is sheer insanity to the ‘perishing’.
So wondrously wise as a fundament is the plan of redemption in Jesus that it bamboozles all those who are as yet unready to surrender their wills to God for the saving of their souls. The moment readiness to accept salvation is apparent, the light of Spiritual reason becomes known.
In a world that expects cause and effect, as well as a reliably certain way of life, it comes as rather a shock that there is death, suffering and disaster, as well as bliss, achievement and wonder in this life. The response to the former is usually denial and a failure to grieve appropriately. The latter brings with it responses of complacency and pride. These responses are found to be inept.
There are so many angles of ‘foolishness’ in the cross for the ordinary man and woman on the street. The cross cuts against the grain of human wisdom. It can’t be reconciled, let alone believed — not until the right time.
But the message of the cross is acceptance of the irreconcilable — acceptance that we often can’t ‘fix’ things.
God’s Wisdom and Way is Self-Apparent
Being that we cannot work life out — and even the Bible agrees (open up Ecclesiastes, the Psalms and Job just to begin with) — wouldn’t it make sense to explore an explanation that covers for the mysteries of life?
How do we explain a mystery?
We simply believe what we see. There’s more than enough evidence for God. We take the world for what it is — something utterly beyond our comprehension — and we don’t try and swim upstream against the current of observational understanding. We go downstream, with the flow, to where we’re meant to go. Hence, we know God in an instant.
We observe this Wisdom of God’s, via the way life works, and we take these uncharacteristic bases and accept them without needing to turn them inside out for ‘more’ evidence.
Agreeing with the Better Wisdom, However Inconvenient
There’s little benefit to be gained in fighting against this inconvenient wisdom. It will beat us every time. Where we’re impatient, frustration will overwhelm us. Where we’re fatiguing ourselves, we will succumb eventually to burnout. Where we take things for granted, we’ll be shocked when things turn for the unpleasant surprise.
God’s Wisdom is inconvenient because it works against our self-sustaining and self-propagating wills. Just imagine if everyone got their very own way. It’s an absurd thought.
This Wisdom of the Almighty is so basic, and actually so verily reliable, we can only hope to come to an increasing understanding and awareness of it.
And if we pray for it — earnestly seeking God for it — it will be given to us (James 1:5). God withholds nothing so good.
© 2011 S. J. Wickham.
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