There are times when I’m sure we’ve ALL done stupid things. Forrest Gump’s mum in the famous movie wisely said, “Forrest, (use a Southern accent), Forrest, stupid is as stupid does”.
Sometimes we do stupid things in ignorance or without realising the full impact. In our early pioneering days in the city of Sydney, the church was young and raw. We also were young and raw and fresh into ministry. Life was full and fabulous and super-crazy-fun pretty much 24/7.
Amid one thousand percent personal involvement and commitment and without fully realising, I accidentally “sowed a drought” into my life when it came to the Word of God. Every time I went to church, I invariably ended up in the foyer pacing a young Joel Houston in his chocolate brown, K-Mart stroller. The combination of missing the weekly sermon (essential to health and wellbeing), plus the weariness that comes with just being a young busy mum, meant that I often “fell asleep” two paragraphs into my personal bible reading at night.
Consequently, without realising it, I sowed a wee drought into my life when it came to the Word of God that sustains, feeds, strengthens and builds our lives. Of course there’s no point getting condemned and the second I woke up to this reality, I corrected what could have become a harmful (and stupid) reality in my life and made up for what I perceived was lost ground.
However the verses in Matthew 7 speak of a different kind of stupid – the kind of stupid that comes when we choose to not recognise how foundational and essential GOD’S WORD is in our lives. A kind of stupid that only perceives His (Holy) words as “home improvements to the Christian lifestyle” – when in fact they are the very Bread of Life, foundational and critical to a life that matures and then becomes immoveable, unshakeable, undaunted when the storms or challenges of life threaten.
So read and ponder and decide indeed that “stupid is as stupid does” – and that with God’s Grace and with the ever present and willing help of the Holy Spirit, you are going to not do what is stupid, but rather DO WHAT IS WISE and work these wonderful, life-giving, life-building words into your life.
Matthew 7:24-27 MSG “These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you WORK THESE WORDS into your life, you are like a SMART carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.
“But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards.”
