Welcome to Today’s Word Is … A Daily Devotion (Mon-Fri) by Chaplain Mark Davis. If this made a difference in your life today, please leave me a comment.
There’s a little fellow named Tommy who hangs out at the local grocery store. The manager doesn’t know what Tommy’s problem is, but the other boys like to tease him. They say he is two bricks shy of a load, or a couple of fries short of a happy meal.
To make fun of him in front of others, sometimes the boys will offer Tommy his choice between a nickel and a dime. He always takes the nickel, and they laugh. “Ha-ha-ha … he thinks because the nickel is bigger, it’s worth more!” Onlookers look sadly at Tommy and tell the boys to leave him alone.
One day after Tommy took the nickel again, the store manager got him off to one side and said, “Tommy, those boys are making fun of you. Why don’t you pick the dime? Don’t you know a dime is worth more than a nickel?”
Tommy said, “Well sir, if I took the dime, they’d quit doing it! I’ve gotten 67 nickels over the last three months!”
Although Tommy may have looked foolish, he had a plan that worked.
The willingness to look foolish in front of others is sometimes required when serving God. Like Moses waving a stick at the Red Sea … or Gideon picking 300 to face an army of 15,000 … or teenage David walking out with a slingshot to face gigantic Goliath.
Being a foolish person with one’s possessions or by the wagging of the tongue or by ignoring God is ill-advised, as many Proverbs say. Consider also Paul saying, “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise …” (Ephesians 5:15)
Again, Paul says. “But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife.” (2nd Timothy 2:23)
And this, “For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.: (Titus 3:3)
But “seeming” foolish while following God’s plan is well worth the risk. After all, the things of God “seem” foolish to the world.
For 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. (1st Corinthians 1:18)
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. (1st Corinthians 1:24)
We must learn how not to be “foolish persons,” while at the same time being bold enough to do something for God and willing to believe in God’s “mysterious ways,” all for the sake of his Kingdom.
1st Corinthians 1:25 “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. … 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty …”
I am glad he chose me and you to be “fools for Christ!” Here we go! Woohoo!
Have a blessed day!
Chaplain Mark