Sometimes I think I really am quite brilliant. I have moments when I can just see and everything just seems so obvious. Perhaps it’s a function of watching too much “Mentalist”. The temptation to think that I’m Patrick Jane and that by having such a brilliant mind and extraordinary powers of perception I can just work it all out.
Of course I don’t. I mean I don’t have a brilliant mind or extraordinary powers of perception. But the problem is that sometimes I think I do.
And I don’t think it’s just me.
I think sometimes reformed evangelical types can be so full of their own brilliance that we eclipse God. It’s almost like the bible isn’t quite smart enough and God’s ways aren’t clever enough so we have to give him a helping hand with out a stunning systematics and our insightful essays and our brilliant strategies.
The fact is though that our history of “brilliant ways to help God” isn’t a glorious one.
“Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; so she said to Abram, ‘The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.’ Abram agreed to what Sarai said.”
Gen. 16:1-2 NIVUK
And when it comes to it, God’s plan to save the world doesn’t seem brilliant but rather foolish to most people.
Perhaps that means I’m not as brilliant as I thought I was and a good deal of humility when it comes to my plans and interventions is wise.
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