The Malady of Stupid

I recently visited a museum dedicated to horses and all the paraphernalia surrounding them. In one area, there were all these carriages and buggies lined up. I was drawn to one in particular which looked very fashionable for its era. It was a ladies’ buggy that was popular in the late 1800s. Of particular note, was a high-arching front that was designed to obstruct the horses’ rear end from the ladies’ view. The sole reason for the design was to prevent offending the tender sensibilities of the ladies. In our generation of in-your-face porn, the thought that women would shrink back at the sight of horse butt is off the charts ridiculous. It does give a new twist on “covering your butt”.

But it did get me to thinking. What is in our own thinking that, 200 years from now, someone is going to think, “You’ve got to be kidding!”

The truth is that “stupid” is not the sole malady of one generation or part of society. If we are honest, we all have to admit we have been exuberant partakers of stupid at one time or another – maybe regularly.

I was talking to God about a particular episode of my own denseness and He said to me, “You are so adorable when you’re clueless.”

The truth is, we are all still trying to figure out ourselves and this thing called life. We are all bound to be idiots at some point or another.

Pointing the finger at others while conveniently forgetting our own version of brainlessness is called pride. And pride is always ugly. Pride never helps. It only condemns. Condemnation never empowered anyone to do or be better.

This is the reason that love is patient, kind and longsuffering. It is the reason that love covers a multitude of sins. Love is not puffed up by making someone else feel stupid.

As sons and daughters of God, we can remain humble, remembering our own foolishness. We can pull on the grace of God to be kind and patient with someone in their stupid and not humiliate them with public advertisement.

And that, my friend, is brilliant!

To find out more about how God’s grace in negative situations, you can download my free mini-book, Rare & Beautiful Treasures.