Folly Never Fulfills Her Promises

A wise person’s heart goes to the right,
but a fool’s heart to the left.
Even when the fool walks along the road, his heart lacks sense, and he shows everyone he is a fool.
Ecclesiastes 10:2–3

Wisdom and Folly do not often travel together. Though they travel on divergent roads, their reputations still stand in opposition to each other and create stark contrasts all over their small town. Shadow and light, death and life, the two embed themselves in the natural world and their differences are on display for the whole town to compare.

In the natural world, the heavier a bomb’s destruction, the more likely we will notice the tree stubbornly breaking through a broken wall. Notes of hope rise from a lone cellist seated amid rubble, caressing his city with a solo against the smoldering rebar of his town square. The more desperate Folly makes the room, the brighter Wisdom shines to say, “Take comfort, I am better and I am here.”

And often, Folly will tell on herself, if given enough time.

False religions and their gods always prove themselves bankrupt. Since they work on the law of diminishing returns, their inevitable failure provides the backdrop for the hope of the gospel. Since Folly has no way of redemption or healing, the promised utopian society never materializes but descends into hatred and chaos, and promised equality means everyone gets nothing—not even life itself.

Folly’s very character betrays her plans. She has no discretion, no discernment, no hope; she is pointed in who she targets, but reckless in her attacks; her way is sloppy. Folly’s exposure is the time for Wisdom’s people, the body of Christ to shine with their hope in the life, death, resurrection, and glorification of Christ.

By adventure, I do not mean “seven days and six fun-filled nights of wonder and excitement.” Rather, I mean adventure in the sense that we will be taken into the desolation that Folly has caused, to places where our faith and confidence are stretched, proven, and deepened, where meaning is given to the pains, disappointments, and sufferings of life. As we affirm our commitment to all the things that Christ is—wisdom, life, hope, and sacrifice—He becomes that tree breaking through the rubble; we become the cellist’s song of hope and deliverance in the town’s square. We live as the set-apart people we have been redeemed to be.

And that is the contrast.

Signs of life in the midst of devastation are set there for our benefit, for our hope in ongoing darkness, whether these are the effects of war, the trauma of abuse, or the persistence of depression.

Wisdom gives, then, as a gift. Our task as we wait for the exodus from Folly’s house? To help each other as we become mired—often through no fault of our own—and suffering in Folly’s darkness.