You can get worldly wisdom from all types of places, and from all kinds of situations. It may make riveting sense, as if you were struck by lightning, but that's often because of the other things happening at the same time that makes the advice click perfectly into place. Upon further examination of the saying, in the light of day, the words don't hold up so well. There is one exception to this, of course. When someone in their "worldly wisdom" is actually quoting God, in context. Intentional or not.

When you get the wind knocked out of you, say you are on the football squad in your school, the coach will probably tell you to "walk it off'. For a wind cramp or similar shock to your system, that makes sense. Your body has this uncanny ability to fix much of itself, but like a car it continues to work properly when USED, but if left parked to "rest" all kinds of things start failing. Of course, in a bigger sense we can see that bad things happen to us throughout our lives and we can let them crush us or "walk them off." Worldly wisdom? Well, in a spiritual sense if we simply continue walking in the light Jesus says we will overcome. God says he will provide and protect us, if we have faith (which is not just belief but active, living obedience to him). So of course the human wisdom of this makes sense, when you realize it's merely a parallel to God's desire for us.

One of my favorite movies is "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly". If you've seen this movie, you know that of the three title characters none are all that good, all three are bad, and what makes one "the ugly" is that he is particularly more ugly than the others. (The bad IS really, really bad, though; so it's not hard to tell them all apart). In any case, Tuco (the ugly) has found a bathtub in a bombed out building and is taking a bubble bath. All his possessions are out of reach when in comes a farmer with a gun. Not just any farmer, a man left for dead by Tuco: a man who has spent the last 8 months learning to shoot left handed and has hunted him down. Now he finds Tuco exactly where he wants him. As the farmer goes on with this long winded speech about how Tuco deserves his fate, Tuco suddenly shoots him through the bubbles. As Tuco says "If you're going to shoot, shoot. Don't talk."

The first time my son Dave and I saw this, we howled with laughter. After all, think of all those movies where the villain explains his whole plan to the "hero" and then leaves him there to his fate - only to have the hero of the movie escape and save the day. I mean, if I was a bad guy I would just shoot the good guy and be done with it. No fancy Rube Goldberg device where dripping water knocks over a candle onto a puddle of gasoline or whatever sinister game you can dream up. This recipe works, though, for TV and movies and we as audiences don't see anything funny about it. I guess we've seen it so many times we expect it. Which is why having the'-victim" (Tuco) shoot the guy is so amazing.

The thing is, we as Christians have to deal with sin all the time. It's all around us and attacks us. Kindly Aunt Jane is in town only for one day, Sunday, and wants to spend it with you. Surely my company won't miss a few reams of paper, right? And I know that new movie has a couple naughty scenes in it, but the story is great and I just can't miss it. See what I mean?

Now, we can compromise with it, we can try to be slick and clever, or maybe even try to reason with it. OR we can just eradicate it and be done with it. Yes, I know we are supposed to be merciful. But remember, we are supposed to show mercy to the sinner, not the sin! There are some things that can't be compromised, that we can't try to dance around, and there is no discussion for. Obviously, I hope by now, you know sin is one of these things. But it also includes, surprisingly enough, worship to God. We might give a lot of lip service. We might give speeches to our families, or soap box talks to co-workers. We might talk a lot about it. But when it comes right down to it, we need to not dream up elaborate schemes or complex approaches to show our piety. If you're going to obey God, then OBEY GOD. Don't talk.

Randy