'Come Now, And Let Us Reason Together', Says Yahweh - Isaiah 1:18

 

 

What strikes me as interesting, is how New Ager’s, Zen Buddhists, takers of Acid and Ayahuasca, all sorts of seekers and mystics and Joe Rogan wannabe’s, spend decades trying to gain such an honest, unflinching, clear-headed vantage on their lives and self. In doing so they hope to become ‘enlightened’. Yet the last place they will ever go looking for the light, and ever wish to go looking, is the Bible and the Holy Spirit. I know because I was one of them. To me, being a Christian was just about the uncoolest thing you could ever be. The cringiest thing you could ever admit to being in public. Christians, as far as my own limited experience went, were judgy hypocrites who considered themselves saved and all others lost in a smugly self-satisfied kind of way, largely because they went to church every week and lived 'clean lives ‘. People who already had all their answers because they failed to ask any questions.

 

The last thing I ever wished to be was one of them.

 

Yet there I was, suddenly alive in Christ and with Christ in me, seeing it all for the very first time, the fallen world put right-side-up, and my life unveiled behind me like an open book, so that I could view it with a kind of God-like detachment. My God! My Yahweh! What a total idiotic narcissistic fool I had been!

 

I prayed forgiveness for my arrogance and pride, and for all the insensitive jackass things I had done and said to others, whether I could recall them or not. And I forgave those who had pained me in similar ways, knowing that I had been no better.

 

 

 

 

LIBERATION

 

I was to find that true liberation comes from revelations like these, because realising you've been a fool all your life leads to a true humility of the heart.

 

And the truly humble person becomes freed from many of the snares and cares of the world, along with many of the weapons of the Enemy. Humility, just like love of truth, not only aids clear vision, but acts as armour too.

 

Even more than this, humility, in quietening the flesh, also serves to nurture within us a gentleness of spirit. For who is boastful who also knows himself as a fool? Who is always certain of his heart when he sees what nonsense once possessed his heart?

 

 

 

 

 

ONE OF GOD’S WISEST FOOLS

 

The Apostle Paul experienced the same revelations through the teaching influence of the Spirit, which he reveals in his letter to the Corinthians:

 

Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. ~ 1 Corinthians 3:18

 

 

Let him become a fool, that he may become wise!

 

In his famous letter to the Corinthians, one of the most famous letters ever written, Paul says much about the foolish and the wise of this world, emphasising that particularly ironic theme found throughout the Bible, in which the wise are fools and the foolish given wisdom.

 

Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. ~ 1 Corinthians 1:20-21

 

For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. ~ 1 Corinthians 1:25

 

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. ~ 1 Corinthians 1:27

 

God chose the foolish and the weak to shame the wise and the strong.

 

 

 

 

 

FOOLS FOR CHRIST

 

Taking Paul’s words to heart, we find those far-out Holy Fools of the Eastern Orthodox Church, along with the early Desert Fathers and other saints who professed themselves to be Fool’s in Christ, and lived so accordingly: giving up all their worldly possessions in favour of poverty, rejecting worldly concerns, and enduring mockery and humiliation as they walked in the Spirit far from the hypocrisy of the age, its brutality, its greed for power and material wealth, deeper into the Kingdom of God.

 

Since these are precisely the things that Christ called for his followers to do, many believers view the Holy Fools as being some of the most devout Christians of all (though many others, admittedly, view them as crazy homeless bums taking it all a little too far).

 

Paul, in contrasting the easy lives of the plump and wealthy church-goers of the Corinthian church with that of the hard-core special-ops existence of the Apostles, describes how he and his peers live day-to-day as fools for Christ.

 

We are fools for Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are honoured, but we are dishonoured. To this very hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are vilified, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer gently. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world. ~ 1 Corinthians 4:10-13

 

 

 

 

 

THIS WISE FOOL

 

I'm a writer by trade, and an internationally published fantasy author who spent most of his earlier life getting to that much-coveted position. Since being reborn however, I've pretty much walked away from the world of mainstream publishing. Directed by the Spirit, I desired to create some distance between my older books and my newer writing, a new Space Fantasy series in particular, without severing the link altogether, since my old work still generates some traffic. In needing a pseudonym I coined the name thiswisefool, which I use now for my contemporary fiction and also for this blog.

 

(Btw my newer fiction can be downloaded here, entirely for free).

 

Strangely, interestingly, a few fellow believers recently voiced their objections to the use of this name wisefool by a fellow follower of Christ.

 

Apparently, the Wise Fool is a highly occult figure used by occultists in Tarot decks and so on. Therefore, to use such a name, I must be dabbling in the occult. I must be some kind of secret magician.

 

(Another person, a Flat Earther, thinks that because I’m now writing about Space and Spaceships, I must be an agent of the Enemy, promoting the Myth of a Rounded Earth).

 

While it’s encouraging to see fellow saints using their discernment to expose the wolves and frauds and occultists of this world, their response to a simple name, based upon scripture, is also a little troubling. I couldn’t help but sense a tension in their responses, a fleshiness, even a little bit of paranoia. Not that I mean this as name-calling. I really don’t. Who isn’t a little paranoid when they finally have their eyes opened to the scheming plots of the wicked in high places and all around them?

 

But over the last year or so, I’ve witnessed a concerning trend of believers tearing down other believers in public. By this, I don’t mean those authentic ministries out there who are exposing the fakes of mainstream Churchianity along with the online frauds pretending to be disclosers of truths. If only more Christians would be so aware of our reality, and call it out for what it is! What I mean are true hard-core believers and exposers of darkness calling out fellow hard-core believers and exposers of darkness, even believers who have suffered persecution and imprisonment for their beliefs.

 

 

 

 

At a time when the earth lies covered in great darkness, and the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, the Remnant of Christ, finds itself scattered in isolation or in small groupings, with the vast majority of Christians having fallen away from truth and sound doctrine - lead astray by their fallen churches no less - we saints should be gathering together in Spirit if not in actual body, sharing our resources and exhorting each other to continue in our missions of advancing the Kingdom and the Good News. We should be as tight as brothers and sisters who would give up their lives for each other. Instead, some of us are inspecting our peers coolly from afar, with suspicions and misunderstandings, condemning those who do not look identical to ourselves, those whose every single step fails to line up exactly with our own.

 

Perhaps some of us have momentarily forgotten how to judge righteously, with that gentle patience of the Spirit, rather than through the haughtiness of the flesh.

 

Maybe in failing to entirely overcome the flesh ourselves, and trying to discern too much too early, we ourselves risk becoming like stiff-necked fools.

 

Or maybe these matters are simple misunderstandings, between people distanced from each other by geography, circumstances, or temperament?

 

Either way I pray for these brothers and sisters in Christ. I pray they will be relieved of any undue stresses and difficulties in their lives right now, so that they might see clearly again with understanding. I pray they remember how all things must be undertaken in love, especially the pursuit and disclosure of truths. I pray they will rely more upon the Spirit for discernment, rather than on their own senses, their own strengths and knee-jerk reactions, so that they may be further blessed with the grace of the Most High.

 

I pray for myself that I might avoid the same errors in my own walk.

 

I pray for the same for everyone who reads these words.

 

 

YOUR RESPONSES

 

Any thoughts? Please do share them by emailing me at thiswisefool@protonmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

 

If there is a next time, I’ll see you then.

 

 

thiswisefool