Sunday, February 24, 2008

FOOLISHNESS

Read 2 Samuel Chapter 6….King David was bringing the ark of the Lord to the city of David, and his wife despised him for she didn’t see it fit for a King to leap and dance before the Lord. “..Danced before the Lord with all his might...”

Watchin the ol’ television set the other day, I saw a college basketball game where some goofy white Ronald Mcdonald lookin dude threw up a last second 3 pointer for the win and skillfully banked it in. Without hesitation, his teammates leapt off the bench in merriment and scooted around the court like FOOLS.

Man…I wanna be a fool for God! I want to follow God with love. I want to be lead by passion and stop worrying. You know when….well….I’m not gonna use any examples because we each have our own personal times when we’re scared to be a fool. So take a few minutes and think about times in your life when you restrain your passion for God because you don’t want to be judged or measured or categorized.

What if those basketball players held back their celebration? Imagine the game winning shot going in and a guy on the bench thinking to himself, “wow that was close, I almost started to get excited. Good thing I didn’t…I woulda looked like an idiot.” Pretty dumb huh?

We previously talked about our Joy in our salvation, and finding our Acceptance in God. That allows us to be fools, spread the joy of God, and not worry about looking ridiculous. Yes it is good to keep in mind what others think, but let us not mistake that for our own pride. David sure didn’t care, and he was a King! He jumped and danced in the streets, yet he didn’t mind if even his own wife lost respect for him because all his jumping and dancing out of love for God.

Why the crap should I care if the kid sitting next to me in class thinks I’m some kind of freak for asking him to come to church? I love Jesus; I’m excited and I want him to experience what I have experienced! I will be a fool in my walk with God (I like to call mine a scamper)! Don’t let your scamper with God be defined by hesitation, and most definitely don’t ever let your passion be muffled. If you are sharing the good news of the gospel with true passion, you will look like a fool to non-believers. I’m not saying maybe, or sometimes, or if you aren’t good at it....I’m telling you that you will look different or idiotic. Therefore we must suck it up, become men/women, and learn how to bring praise to our Lord by being a fool.

Does this make sense or am I talkin like a fool?

8 comments:

The Jake said...

Amen brother dude.
I'll comment later, but I just wanted to say "yayer!"

Anonymous said...

Definitely rings true for a lot of Christians. I feel like a lot of times people don't share their faith in their daily lives. This goes along with the stagnation you talked about earlier. To me, it's all about being on fire for God. If you don't have that passion in the first place, you can't live every aspect of your life exemplifying that passion.

I would also say the cultural norms we live in today have a great effect on our desire to be fools for God. We are trained to live quietly, accept others the way they are, not caring about anyone else but ourselves. We go out and mow our lawn and wave to the neighbors and never have a meaningful conversation with them. We stay quiet in the lines at the grocery store, we hold our tongue when things like homosexuality, sexual impurity, greed in the marketplace or even about the way some people define their "Christianity" come up because we don't want to offend anyone.

Foolishness I would say is just one aspect of how we can glorify God, but it's vital to us. We have to be able to humble ourselves before God and be willing to look like idiots in front of other people if it means God will be pleased with us. After all, our neighbors, classmates, friends and even family won't be the ones we have to answer to on the day of judgment. God will be the only one who will judge us eternally, and won't it be great to be rewarded for throwing those social norms out the window and looking like a complete idiot?

Heck Ya

Markus Edwards said...

thats cool matthias

i like that you said, we need to humble ourselves. I think that is big if we are to be fools(in a good way). Not acting how people expect you to act, but how God expects you to act.

being a college student there are obvious ways for me to be a fool on campus, but what does that look like for a working adult????

The Jake said...

Working adult! Oh man!
Welp, it's kind of hard for me when I teach at a public school and we can't discuss religion. But I guess I could still be a fool, like showing my faith through my actions.

I think it's just hard sometimes to think about this when you are in a valley in your spiritual walk or even in your life. I mean, you may be growing and learning a lot about God, but it doesn't mean that you feel like dancing.

Markus Edwards said...

yea, your spiritual walk/skip is your life. What helps me when I am in a "valley" is to throw away the idea of being in a valley, and go over in my head what I am doing. What am i living for? Do I love God? Am i living like I love God?

You think we can get to the point, that even if we are in a "valley", we can still live like fools for God?

The Jake said...

Yeah, for realsies.
What the bleep is a "valley" anyways, other than maybe just an excuse not to try so hard and wallow in self pity.
Maybe.

Markus Edwards said...

yea it almost has the feel of someone saying, "uh oh, a case of the mondays!"

when i'm in a valley, don't tell me to just wait for it to be done with. I'm going to punch the next person who says that to me in the stomach.

Anonymous said...

well now that i know not to say that to you Markus...(not like i would anyways though).
That's definitely something that most Christians struggle (me being one of them) the fact that something goes wrong or you don't have the happiness you want and blah blah blah. As humans we make up excuse after excuse of why we are not excited or why we are not in a good mood or whatever. I agree with you guys though, just suck it up. We are called to talk to others about our faith, and most of the time we just ignore those little voices (i.e. God) telling us we should talk to a person and such, and that is what sometimes gets us in those "valley's". Jesus was bold and we are supposed to be like Jesus... so yea.
And trust me this is something I struggle with, so I don't want to sound like a hypocrite, but this is what i am learning.