Foolishness and Madness

Have you ever totally worn yourself out with an apology?

Have you ever thought, and thought, and thought about why was it exactly that you were motivated to act in that certain way that resulted in you being a total JERK!  Oh, I was so tired that I snapped, or I was PMS-ing, or you know I hate Tuesdays and today is Tuesday! or I just feel frustrated with somethng YOU did etc. etc. etc.

Have you rationalized it, and expalined it all away and managed to take the spotlight off of YOU and put it on some really good reason for why you did this thing? If I sound like I have experience in doing this, then yeah…. it’s because I do. I’m ashamed how many times I’ve given my husband some lame-o explanation rather than a heart-felt apology, only to realize nothing has been made right.

All too often I get worked up and consumed with the WHY of the sin. “Why did I do that?!! What was I thinking? I’m sure there’s a  reason.” And on the reverse side, I wonder  and ponder why someone else would sin against me. Particularly when it is someone who loves me and whom I trust. “Why would they do that? I don’t get it!”

Apparently, I’m not the only one. King Solomon has wondered about the why of sin: “I applied my heart to know, to search and seek out wisdom and the reason of things, to know the wickedness of folly, even the foolishness and madness.” (Ecclesiastes 7:25)

So I’m going to do it again, I’m going to rave about Jeffery Meyer’s Ecclesiastes insight  (A Table in the Mist) :

“Man’s fall into sin leaves us surrounded in mystery. Unfallen man, made in God’s image would also be mysterious, no doubt, but sin addes to the incomprehensible complexity of human nature.” (pg 158)

As the wife of a prosecutor, I am sometimes overwhelmed by the madness of wickedness, and the inability to explain it. Who can answer why the recent South Park Killer chose two random women in Seattle to brutally rape and murder? Who can even fathom the actions of the parents who sexually abused their own four year old and sold the videos of their horrific acts? Or the woman who starved her step-child?

No one can explain, Solomon says. Evil is unexplainable. It doesn’t make sense. It is purely contrary to the order of the God who created this world, and the rules of justice He set in place.

After Solomon has done his searching to “know the wickedness of folly” he tells us all he found: “something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets and whose hands are fetters.”

Meyers explains who the woman is. She is folly, the opposite of lady wisdom, and Ecclesiastes continues that “He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her.”

This isn’t a warning to men about sexual seduction, Meyers says, this a warning to all men and women about the seduction of evil, of madness, of folly. We are responsible for our choices, insanity is no excuse for sin. There is no excuse. We act knowingly, knowing there is a lady wisdom and lady folly. We seek our own schemes.

“See this alone I found, that God made man upright but they have sought out many schemes” Ecclesiastes 7:29

There is only one solution after we have  madly followed lady folly. Whether it was a big screw up or a little blunder, only one thing can bring sanity and restoration.  Forgiveness.

So then, back to the beginning scenario where I was messing up the one thing that can free us from foolishness and madness– forgiveness. Don’t look for reasons. Don’t look for excuses. Don’t even look for explanation. Look for forgiveness. Repent. Admit your wrong doing, as such. Express your desire to follow wisdom instead. And know that a broken and a contrite heart the Lord will not despise.

What a difference it makes! When I truly repent of my sins before man and God, I don’t waste time playing mind games or trying to work my way into a position where I can feel sorry for myself. It is dealt with. I am restored. And I can finish my day,  more in awe than ever, of this thing we call forgiveness and the freedom it brings.