Follies

"Hear this and testify against the house of Jacob," declares the Lord, the LORD God Almighty.
"On the day I punish Israel for her sins,
I will destroy the altars of Bethel;
the horns of the altar will be cut off
and fall to the ground.
I will tear down the winter house
along with the summer house;
the houses adorned with ivory will be destroyed
and the mansions will be demolished,"
declares the LORD.

(Amos 3:13-15, NIV)

I don't know why, but I often feel good when I was doing poorly and I heard that other people were also not doing very well either. It may just be my selfish ego or my fallen human nature, but I admit that it's difficult to get rid off. I remember my first math pop-quiz in High School on the first day of the class. I only got a mere 2 point (of 10 point maximum), but I did not feel as bad because more than half of the class got the same grade or less (In fact the teacher said that about one third of the class got zero). I remember the teacher told us that the quiz was just used to measure our math comprehension, because many students came from different junior high school all over the country. Frankly, I was glad not because our grades from the quiz would not be recorded in our report card, but because I was not alone and many people are doing worse than me. Well, isn't selfishness an interesting built-in human trait?

And the same applies here to the calamity befalling Israel. I don't know why, but frankly I felt that Israelites' misfortune somewhat makes a part of my heart feel happy. Please don't get me wrong, I don't want to gloat on this.... I also feel bad and sorry at the same time. Well, I know that my business is not doing OK, but I was still somewhat comforted because at least I did not experience the same thing as the Israelites in those days. Well, I know I never have a summer and winter house like those referred to in the verse, but at least that I would not feel as miserable as those owned such properties and suddenly lost them.

True, we often don't appreciate on what we have until we lose them. I bet those rich people who owned summer and winter houses would probably have never been grateful having owned such majestic properties until they day they lost them. I saw an online commentary about rich people who lost their money in the stock market crash 2008 and early 2009. Truly, at first I was not a bit sympathetic to them because even though they may have lost millions or billions of dollars, they still have many millions or billions left. But as I tried to picture myself in their positions, I began to realize that losing millions of dollars (which may only be 20%-40% of their net worth) could really mean a great deal for those rich people.

I am afraid that those rich people really feel that by losing those amount of money, they can no longer afford their lavish parties or expensive accessories, and it may have affected them greatly. For a second, just imagine yourself being a rich and spoiled millionaire who used to throw binge parties daily but now is forced to do it twice a week. It feels bad, isn't it? Some leechers who used to hang around us will start sneering over our decision and start leaving our parties and choosing other people's instead. It hurts, doesn't it? Well, it does... in a foolish way.

Sadly, that's who we are, foolish people who often chose to live in our folly and rejected the wisdom from God. Too bad we often realized our mistakes only after we were almost drown in the ditches. It sounds more like the regret of a small kid who were caught stealing red-handedly, but that's how we chose to live our lives and it will not change... not until we found ourselves in a deep trouble because of it, and then we cried out... Lord, lord, have mercy on me!

True, God does have endless mercy and compassion if we truly humble ourselves and seek his forgiveness, but sometimes we may found ourselves in a bind when we didn't have time to do so... Just think of Ananias and Sapphira story in Acts, I still believe that God would have forgiven them if they confessed and sought his mercy, but they never did because of their foolish belief, and we all know how their lives ended up....

O Lord, please forgive our foolish acts, guard our heart from doing such follies.