So… I had an “aha” moment this morning as I was driving to work. I was thinking about the craziness of our world today and the intensity of the upcoming elections and God’s faithfulness in the midst of all of it. I thought about the scripture in 1 Cor. 1:25 that says:

“For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom…”

For the longest time I had interpreted that scripture to mean that God is so wise and so superior to us that even His foolishness is wiser than our wisdom. Wait a minute – doesn’t that imply that God can be foolish?! Because I couldn’t even go there in my mind (I was raised in the African culture where it’s practically an abomination to consider an adult “foolish”, let alone God Almighty), I didn’t delve or seek to unravel the mystery of those words.

Well, this morning, it occurred to me – the “foolishness of God” is not referring to foolishness in God’s nature or personality, but to what WE would label foolish. For instance, isn’t the very message of the cross foolish to the secular mind? Why should God Himself come as a man to pay for sin He didn’t commit, on behalf of people who not only do not deserve it, but who sometimes completely disregard His sacrifice and reject Him, chosing death over life over and over again? Makes no sense in the natural, a.k.a. foolishness, at least in the way we perceive it; the way our human reasoning processes and defines foolishness versus wisdom. I guess I should have read the Message translation of that verse, which says:

“Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God.” [emphasis mine]

God has no foolishness in Him whatsoever. We, however, are full of it!