"Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, 'The seventh year, the year of release is near,' and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the LORD against you, and you be guilty of sin. You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him because for this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake." -Deuteronomy 15:9-10.
In ancient Israel, every seven years, all debts were forgiven. People that lent money to others in the sixth year might have felt like they were being stupid because they would never see any of that money come back to them. However, God told them to guard against thoughts that would be seemingly logical, full of good stewardship, shrewd and strategical. In a sense, the thought, "the seventh year is approaching, it's silly to give" is technically "right" but it's wrong because it's unloving. We must always remember that no matter how "right" we are, if we act without love, we're in trouble (we see this in 1 Corinthians 13-all things done without love are counted as nothing before God.)
So the questions I try to remember to ask when something seems silly are these:
- God, are you calling me to do something that is logical only in the sense that it is loving and not that it is the most efficient or technically accurate way to do something?
- Am I loving this person, group of people or organization well?
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| Pascal |
...Aaaaand I'll close with this thought from philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal:
"Le cœur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaît point. On le sent en mille choses. C'est le cœur qui sent Dieu, et non la raison. Voilà ce que c'est que la foi parfaite, Dieu sensible au cœur."
"The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason. This, then, is faith: God felt by the heart, not by the reason."
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