Summary: <br> Have you ever said something in the moment and regretted it? Have you ever made a decision you know was so utterly stupid? Yeah, me too. What does God do with people who have moments of stupid? Oh I know exactly what he does. Listen up my fellow impulsive, bad decision makers!<br> The bible is full of stories of people who had moments of stupid. I feel as if looking at their stories, stories of good people who loved God and were even highly favored by God, yet really excelled at being ignorant at just the wrong moment, well that will give us some confidence in our own story.<br> Abraham was a man whom God had promised to bless with children. But you know sometimes God’s timing and our timing doesn’t quite jive and in our own head we think we can speed up the process a bit. In Abraham’s opinion God was taking entirely too long to fulfill his promise of giving he and Sarah a baby, so he has his epic moment of stupid. He’ll sleep with his wife’s servant and she will have his baby. You know what’s even worse, it was Sarah’s idea in the first place! So the servant has Abraham’s firstborne child, and shortly after God does exactly what he promised he would do, he does the impossible … Sarah gets pregnant too. As you can imagine, this creates chaos and turmoil for their family. Ahhhh, it was that moment of stupid! A moment of stupid sponsored by impatience. That lightbulb moment of “I have a bright idea” without a holy pause to run it by God first.<br> Jonah was God’s chosen one to speak to and work through. A man created for a mission, and when God clearly gave Jonah his mission, scripture says “he ran away from the Lord.” He not only ran away, but he went in the exact opposite direction from where God told him to go. That was a moment of stupid. A moment of stupid sponsored by his fear. Not only his fear, but he just plain ol’ didn’t want to do what God had clearly told him to do. And so he goes in the wrong direction, avoiding his mission and he’s swallowed up by a whale. Well that sucks. Talk about a coming to Jesus moment when you’re in the depths of the sea, in the belly of a whale!<br> Or perhaps the most famous moment of stupid, Peter, a close friend of Jesus. One of the 12 who walked so closely with Jesus, who knew him best, who saw first hand his miracles. Not only saw his miracles, but was invited to be part of the miracles. Peter was a man who had walked on water with Jesus. But then, when under pressure, he denied he even knew who Jesus was. This moment of stupid was sponsored by impulsiveness. Speaking before thinking. Peter was always the impulsive one. The first to jump up and go. The first to volunteer. But now he was so quick to speak and he knew what he had done. Imagine that sinking feeling of knowing you had just done the very thing you said you would never do.<br> And there we have it, impatience, fear, and impulsiveness all bringing about moments of stupid. We’ve all had them. And for those of us raising the next generation of human beings, we have a front row seat to watching our offspring’s shining moments of stupid. Just yesterday I was speaking to a few women I mentor, each sharing with me separately how their young adult child seems to be screwing up their life in the most epic of ways. “You’ve been dating for 2 months, sure it’s time to move in together. Absolutely!” “You have no job, you’re looking for no job, so let’s just lay around this week too and assume a job will somehow come magically knocking on your door in the future. Great!” “You were where … doing what … with who? Brilliant. I know I taught you so well.”<br> I wish God would just come in and save us from our moments of stupid. Keep us from ever making that bad decision, going down the wrong path, and creating a mess for ourselves.
