The Fool: He who does not learn the lessons from his trials

A few months back, a friend of mine went through a shocking injury experience. One time we were pondering why this could have happened, so we ended up studying Deuteronomy 8:2-5, which says: “And you shall remember [always] all the ways which the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart (mind), whether you would keep His commandments or not. He humbled you and allowed you to be hungry and fed you with manna, [a substance] which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, so that He might make you understand [by personal experience] that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your feet swell these forty years. Therefore, know in your heart (be fully cognizant) that the Lord your God disciplines and instructs you just as a man disciplines and instructs his son.”

There are so many lessons to take away from these verses, and I’ve highlighted some of the main points above – meditate on them.

For this post, there’s a segment that I want to double click on i.e. “to know what was in your heart (mind), whether you would keep His commandments or not”. In essence, God allowing us to go through a challenging experience is partly because He’s interested in knowing/seeing how you would respond: 1) during the crisis, but also importantly, 2) after the crisis. (Like a reader added: He’s an all knowing God. He already knows how we will respond. Sometimes these trials are so that WE know how we’ll respond). I also explore why your tests/trials are not random, but specially curated for you, whilst also exploring the link between how we respond to life’s trials and the fate of our lives.

During the crisis / wilderness season

The Bible is rife with stories of many people who, when faced with a challenging situation, turned to God e.g. Joseph as a slave; David living as a refugee before he became King; Abraham, Isaac and Hannah when they were believing God for a child; Jacob when in exile from home after deceiving his father; Job turning to God when afflicted by the devil; Saul (Paul) when struck with blindness for three days; King Jehoshaphat turning to praise and prayer when faced with a strong enemy etc.

The Bible is however also rife with stories of people who, when faced with challenging situations, instead turned away from God e.g. the Israelites in the wilderness, making many complaints against God and choosing to worship idols despite them having God’s vivid presence with them via a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire; Saul going to a witch instead of seeking the will of God via His prophets etc.

After the crisis – after you’ve been rescued

Ok, so you’ve gone through the crisis, you got closer to God and hallelujah, you’ve been rescued from your crisis. What tends to happen is that we humans quickly forget what God has saved us from and if we’re not careful, because we’re sinners, we soon return to living a life that does not prioritize God, a life of sin, one that takes his grace and mercies for granted. This is why the Deuteronomy 8:2 verse says: “remember [always] all the ways which the Lord your God has led you…”, implying that we must find ways to keep reminding ourselves that if not for God’s mercy or grace, we would not be where we are today.

The Bible surely has examples of individuals who toed the line of forgetting God, which allows us to heed warnings for our own lives. In each example, after they experienced the power of God, they hardened their heart, turned away from Him, continued living in sin or their former ways of life, and ultimately they were destroyed.

• One of my favorite stories is that of King Asa (father of righteous King Jehoshaphat) which you find in 2 Chronicles 14-16. King Asa’s story starts off with the Bible saying that “he did what was pleasing and good in the sight of the Lord his God.” In fact, did you know that God granted King Asa the greatest military conquest in the Bible, when he faced an Ethiopian army of 1mn men and 300 chariots with only 580,000 soldiers and won. God also made many promises to protect and prosper King Asa, as long as he remained faithful to Him. This led to many years of peace in the land. But in the 35th year of his reign, King Asa’s heart was tested with war, to see if he would remember how God had granted him the victory in times past. Instead of trusting God, King Asa rather trusted in the King of Syria to help him, and even took money from the treasury of the House of God to send to him. God sent a prophet to warn King Asa of his mistakes and called him “a fool” for not remembering God. Instead of repenting, King Asa became angry, imprisoned the prophet, then began to oppress his people. Eventually, within just four years, King Asa developed a severe foot disease. Even in this situation, the Bible says that he did not seek God’s help but turned only to his physicians and ultimately died. In essence, despite living a long 35-yr reign in faithfulness to God, when sin crept in and took dominion over King Asa, his rule was quickly brought to an end within just 4-5 years. How unfortunate! 😢

• The riches of King Hezekiah had made him become so proud that when he was visited by the Babylonian Princes, instead of telling them all about the power of God (who had just healed him from a terminal illness and had blessed the land mightily), King Hezekiah instead foolishly showed them the riches, claiming them as his, ultimately leading to a captivity curse from God that affected generations after him. The texts tell us that in that moment, Hezekiah was being tested by God, as God wanted to see what was really in his heart – 2 Chronicles 32:31; Isaiah 39; 2 Kings 20:12-19

• King Saul, till his death, struggled with submission to God. He kept blowing hot and cold, till the grace of God over him lapsed and he was left to run a mock, leading to his ultimate downfall and the destruction of his family. One could say that unlike David, Saul never quite had a wilderness experience before he became King; therefore, he never quite got grounded in his faith.

• There was Pharaoh, who experienced all those mighty miracles of God done by the hand of Moses. Although he initially submitted to God, the depth / root of his submission was weak. Therefore, he subsequently hardened his heart and was ultimately destroyed alongside his army.

• Judas Iscariot was a disciple of Jesus. He was there with Jesus all along and saw all those mighty miracles that He performed. Yet, till the very end, he allowed his sinful nature to reign over him, which led to his downfall. He had always been greedy, often stealing money from the coffers of Jesus and the disciples. He was not mindful of heavenly things, but of earthly things. It was this same greed that the devil ultimately latched onto to tempt him and bring about his downfall.

Why does God allow you to be tested in a particular way?

This is the question that my friend was ultimately trying to answer. When we look through the Bible, we find that when God allows a specific test to know what’s in someone’s heart, it’s not some random test but a specially curated one for that person e.g. Abraham’s test to sacrifice his only son (Genesis 22:1-2), King Hezekiah’s test to see if he’ll remember to honor God in the sight of the powerful Babylonians, King Asa’s test with war, Judas Iscariot’s temptation with money etc.

Basically, the test often concerns idols in your heart, things/sins that have or risk taking the place of God in your life, or areas that you’ve allowed sin to dominate and have not consecrated to God. For my friend, the crisis faced was a physical / bodily accident. For me, I’ve observed that God has often used my career as a testing furnace, probably because there was a risk of me placing career success above seeking Him first, diligently.

Job 36:8-12 tells us that when we face troubles, during that season, God shows us the reason, He wants to get our attention during that season, and instructs us to turn from our evil ways. However, how we subsequently respond then determines the fate of our lives – prosperity or destruction from our lack of understanding.

The above isn’t meant to be a holistic response to the question posed, so pair your reading with: Principles for waiting on God and dealing with uncertainty

Conclusion

What we can learn from all this is that God is watching you, to see / know what is really in your heart, if you will choose to live a life in obedience to Him, if you will be wise enough to know that the trajectory of your life depends on obedience to His word. 2 Chronicles 16:9 tells us that: “the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him”. David also tells us in Psalms 139:23-24 and Psalms 66:10-12 that God searches to know our hearts, to see if there is any wicked way in us, that even though he tests us through the fire and the flood, if we pass, He will bring us to a place of abundance.

Many have missed it; they never understood. They have come out on the other side of their crisis / wilderness and ended up loving the gift more than the giver, such as the Israelites after they entered the promised land, or Hezekiah who had become blinded by his riches after God had miraculously healed him from a terminal illness and added 15 years to his life! But we also have a powerful example from the life of Abraham, who, after having waited 25 years for a son, God tested him with a request to sacrifice his son, his only son, and Abraham proved that he loved God more than the gift.

My point is that God tests our hearts during our crises and even after our crises. I urge you not to fail the test and leave you with the below Bible verses of warning (nicely summarized by ChatGPT) 🤖:

• Hebrews 10:26-29 – “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment… How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?“

This passage warns of the consequences of deliberately rejecting God’s grace. Grace is God giving us something good we don’t deserve (e.g., eternal life, blessings). Mercy is God not giving us the bad consequences we do deserve (e.g., punishment, condemnation).

• Romans 6:1-2 – “So do you think we should continue sinning so that God will give us more and more grace? Of course not! Our old sinful life ended. It’s dead. So how can we continue living in sin?”

This passage warns against abusing God’s grace by willfully continuing in sin.

• Ecclesiastes 10:2-3 –“The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. Even as fools walk along the road, they lack sense and show everyone how stupid they are.”

While not directly about grace, it highlights the foolishness of rejecting wisdom, which can lead to taking God’s mercy lightly. The consequences of foolishness also tend to be revealed publicly, bringing the fool to shame.

• Proverbs 1:7 –“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

This verse highlights how fools reject God’s guidance and wisdom, which is a form of taking His grace lightly.

• Proverbs 14:9 –“Fools mock at making amends for sin, but goodwill is found among the upright.”

This verse illustrates how fools trivialize sin and neglect the opportunity for repentance, taking God’s mercy for granted.

• Jude 1:4 – “I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches, saying that God’s marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago, for they have denied our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”

Here, Jude warns against people who misuse God’s grace as an excuse for sinful behavior.

These verses collectively warn against foolishness in responding to God’s grace / mercy with continued disobedience, and emphasize the importance of honoring it through repentance and righteous living. As you endure this divine discipline / tests, remember that God is treating you as his own children. If like a father, God doesn’t discipline / test you as he does all of His children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really His child at all. For our earthly fathers discipline us for a few years, doing the best they know how. But God’s discipline (however long or in whatever form) is always good for us, so that we might share in His holiness. No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way by chastening / discipline (Hebrews 12:1-13).

Like Paul, I urge you to fight the good fight (of faith, endurance and perseverance), finish your race, and remain faithful to the end, because the prize awaits you — the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give you on the day of His return. And the prize is not just for you or me, but for all who eagerly look forward to His appearing (2 Timothy 4:7-8).

We are only able to do all this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion, who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting Him, He endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now He is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. Think of all the hostility He endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up (Hebrews 12:2-4).

Pair this post with: Why God allows “the wilderness” and the importance of responding correctly while in it