Tomfoolery

 This is what the Lord says— your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. (Isaiah 48:17)

One of my writer friends posted about her concerns about God’s guidance in her life, and another friend responded (as I did) about our struggles in this same area. Jewish high priests and kings looked to the Urim and the Thummin as God’s means of communicating His will to Israel. According to at least one survey, 12% of Americans read their horoscopes daily, and more than 30% of them read it occasionally. Goodreads.com has a list of more than 19,000 personal growth books. Another source says that there are 50,000 psychics in America and Europe, and by one estimate, twice as many as many life coaches as psychics in the world.

John Ortberg teaches (as his mentor, Dallas Willard did) that the soul is needy. We want and need expert advice about our direction in life. Most of us know we don’t have enough wisdom to do it on our own – though we often behave as if we believe we do because we’re as afraid to appear weak as we are to either step out on our own or to risk ridicule when we do step out and fall on our faces in the – um – mud. We vacillate between “I am GOD!” (or “I am as wise as God!”) and “Someone, tell me what to do while I suck my thumb.”  Sometimes, we go a little farther and say, “Someone do it for me while I suck my thumb.” Sometimes, the period of that vacillation can be measured in eye-blinks.

I’m listening to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – the last CD, thank God! – and I think sometimes we think of God like Tom Sawyer in that story. He shows up at the end and insists that helping Jim escape absolutely must involve all manner of complications ad nonsense, and if done right, should take 37 years. Whenever anyone questions anything he says (including having Jim escape from his prison and help get a grinding wheel to take back into his prison with him) he questions their intelligence and explains that all the great stories about prisoners and escapes require these things, so they simply had to do it. He hasn’t reached the “if y’all aren’t a gonna do it right, I’m not going to hep y’all any more” point, but I wouldn’t put it past Tom to stamp his feet and make threats about it.

That’s the sort of thing we sometimes expect from God. And sometimes, the plan does have more steps in it that we want it to, but when it’s over, I’ve realized that God’s plan was wise – not the Tomfoolery of Tom Sawyer. And what today’s passage tells us is that God doesn’t get disgusted with us. He understands our Tomfoolery and guides us anyhow. He leads us in the best way for us to go, even when we don’t listen.