By Ada Brownell
After I’d been on vacation I
went to the lunch area and my mind must not have arrived yet. I stuck my tea
water in the refrigerator and my Coke in the microwave. I caught myself just
before I pressed the start button.
The day
before Deputy Attorney General Byron (Whizzer) White was appointed to the U.S.
Supreme Court, I walked into the press conference and shook hands with a local
TV news anchor instead of White. Of course, this was early in my newspaper career.
I like excuses for stupid.
Our trio, the
Damascus Singers, was invited to participate in a singspiration service. I was
appointed to introduce our song.
“We’ve heard
a lot of great music tonight,” I said. “Now we’re going to sing, ‘If it Keeps
Getting Better.’” Took me a minute to realize why the audience laughed.
Some cases of
the stupids are more serious, and could be deadly.
Take Eve, for
instance. What on earth was she doing talking to Satan, who took on the form of
a snake that could communicate? Before God judged the critter he was beautiful,
though. Yet his bite was full of poisonous venom.
I guess talking wasn’t Eve’s problem, it was the
listening. God already told Adam, and
I’m sure he shared it with his new wife, never to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge
of good and evil. If they did, the Lord warned, they would die.
I don’t think
Eve paid much attention to that. Probably that’s why the stupids virus headed
for her.
“You won’t
die!” the serpent proclaimed. “God knows if you eat of it, your eyes will be
opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Eve had a
good eye for beauty and saw the tree was good for food and pleasant to the
eyes. If she’d been in a mall, she’d grabbed her credit card. She reached up,
picked it, and ate. Like any temptress, she shared it with the man in her life.
Who would
notice a few bites of fruit? God did because of what the tree represented.
Suddenly their innocence vanished. They tried to hide their nakedness because
now it seemed wrong, yet God knew they disobeyed and elaborated on the
consequences.
Perhaps they
didn’t fully comprehend the horror of yielding to temptation until they had to
bury a son, murdered by his brother. I imagine their tears partly were shed
because death became a fact of life when they sinned against God.
Hiding had
done them no good. God called for Adam. The Lord knew where the man was, but
Adam needed to come out and confess.
Amazing that
our loving God, who gave freedom to choose whether to serve Him, almost
instantly revealed He would bring a way to restore immortality to humankind. He
would send a Redeemer (Genesis 3:15) who would conquer Satan and death. That
Redeemer is Jesus, God’s only Son (John 3:16).
All through
the Bible we see God’s great love and His willingness to forgive sin. He
doesn’t hold being stupid against us. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful
and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1
John 1:9).
Ah! Stupids
flee when we finally get smart. Some good ways to increase wisdom: READ THE
WORD OF GOD, THE BIBLE and also these books by Ada Brownell will help. They’re
written to encourage you to believe.
All of
the books contain elements to increase faith such as nono-fiction Facts, Faith
and Propaganda, Imagine the Future You, Swallowed by Life, and including fiction,
The Lady Fugitive its sequel Peach Blossom Rancher, both historical suspenseful
romances.
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