Have you ever heard the
saying; "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and
expecting different results"? While many misquote it as if from Benjamin
Franklin, Mark Twain, or Albert Einstein it was actually written by Narcotics
Anonymous in the early 80's. But that is how it is with quotes isn't it?
Especially the proverbial "out-of-the-park" home run quotes. We hang
the deepest truths to come from the smartest and brightest people, when they
are at the top of their game. Instead, many of the deepest truths in life
surface from those who are at the end of their rope; not famous, or polished,
maybe their life is falling apart around them, or they are making the biggest
mistakes of their lives. Life is this way.
In Balak’s desperation I
see a hint of what NA had stumbled upon in describing insanity. He believes
that God could be swayed into taking his side by moving to a different
mountain. He had completely missed who God is and his purpose. With each
attempt to curse Israel, he solidified his opposition to God’s will. Can’t we
be like this? We try over and over in our prayers to sway God to our will, at
times missing his. Unlike Balak, those who follow Jesus come to God as children
needing correction in our thinking.
God understands our tendency
to “spin our wheels,” trying to sway him to our own will rather than listening
for his. While we may experience it as
“insanity,” though true insanity is far darker and deeper, it is a normal human
experience. We have all been in this position at some point in our journey.
Consider these poetic words of C.S. Lewis:
“He
whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When
I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And
dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols
(I Know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus
always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshiping
with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And
all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The
coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou
in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our
arrows, aimed unskillfully, beyond desert;
And
all men are idolaters, crying unheard
To a
deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.
Take
not, oh Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in Thy great,
Unbroken
speech our limping metaphor translate.”
A
footnote to all Prayer – C.S. Lewis
Father, free us
from the insanity of doing the same thing over and over again. Let us listen to
your voice and bend freely to your will in our lives that others might see your
grace in love, rather than our own calculating and scheming, in our ways.
In Jesus’ Name
