Five (More) Signs That You Are Becoming a Fool

As long as you're either over the age of 35 or you have a fairly good grasp on pop-culture, it probably doesn't take you long to make the connection between the title and the picture. Mr. T was a cultural icon of the 80s with a catch phrase as short and powerful as his mo-hawk. Maybe I'll regret it later but I couldn't think of a more perfect way to kick off the blog this week than to point out the one thing that the LORD and Mr. T have in common: they both pity fools.

THE WORD

"Some became fools through their rebellious ways and suffered affliction because of their iniquities. They loathed all food and drew near the gates of death."

Psalm 107:17-18

If you haven't read last week's blog, it's important to do that before reading this. You can find it here.

Just a quick refresher, you can't just BE a fool, you BE-COME one, and the book of Proverbs provides us with plenty of warnings to keep us from doing so. However, it's comforting to know that God (like Mr. T) has compassion even for the fool. But, unlike Mr. T, His pity is not in response to His own wrath, but rather in response to our cry.

About those same "fools" described in Psalm 107, it goes onto say: 19"Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them from their distress. 20He sent out His word and healed them; He rescued them from the grave."

So as we go through five more warning signs of foolish behavior, keep in mind God's grace is sufficient for any and every area of your life that you're willing to invite Him into.

FIVE (MORE) SIGNS THAT YOU ARE BECOMING A FOOL

6. You believe everything you HEAR which often leads to FEAR.

"The simple believe anything, but the prudent give thought to their steps."

Proverbs 14:15

To be naive or gullible has always been a detriment. But in the information age, where news headlines command our attention, it's more than just a detriment, it's a death sentence. Our mental state can't handle the over-exposure we have to factual news and events, so it certainly can't handle the water hose of misinformation and conspiracies that come across our screens as well.

In Ephesians 4, the apostle Paul emphasizes the need for every believer to mature in the faith specifically so that we will not be "infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching..." (V.14)

In today's climate we can't afford to read more online than in scripture. If you don't have a steady diet of truth, you won't have a strategic defense against deception. Lies cannot just be ignored, they must be confronted and expelled.

This warning is very near to my heart because I spent many days as a high school Bible teacher addressing bad theology learned on TikTok. The result of believing everything presented to you is not only toxic behavior, but toxic thinking. There can be no peace of mind when pieces OF your mind have become captive to deception. Don't believe everything you see, hear, and read. That's foolish.

7. You make a bad LOVER because you disrespect your MOTHER.

"A wise son makes a father glad, But a foolish man despises his mother."

Proverbs 15:20

DATING ADIVCE: Ladies, how he treats his mom NOW is how he will treat his wife in the future. It's just true. Now, I'm aware that some people just have really bad parents. However, as a general rule, a child's relationship with their siblings and parents is a window into the health of their future marriage.

Who you live in close proximity with has access to the real you. Our public personas are easy to love, but there's a reason we make vows on our wedding day. It's because who we are behind closed doors needs a love that is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs.

The Word tells us not only is it wise to honor our parents, it's moral. It's so important to God, He put it in His top ten, wedged right in between "keep the sabbath holy" and "don't kill anyone" (my wording). As a matter of fact, the command to honor your father and mother is the only one that comes with a promise.

Bottom line: call your mom today and tell her you love her. You'd be foolish not to.

8. You tend to tear DOWN with no plans to be FOUND.

"The wise woman builds her house, But the foolish tears it down with her own hands."

Proverbs 14:1

Jesus shared a couple of different parables about building. In one He emphasizes the importance of WHERE you build (Matthew 7). In another He talks about the importance of counting the cost BEFORE you build (Luke 14). Whether you're building a house, a marriage, a career, a ministry, or a life in general, there is a price to pay for skipping the blue prints.

Essentially what Proverbs 14 is referring to is self-destructive behavior. After all, it says she tears down her own house with her own hands. We are all born with self-destructive desires which war against our soul. It's for this reason Jesus came to deliver us from being enslaved by those desires. Self-destruction comes in many forms. Let me just list a few:

- A persecution mindset. This results in a tendency to hold people who are present in your life captive to the mistakes of people from your past. It prohibits you from being able to trust and build stable relationships. Because of this cycle, relationships can never fully develop into anything that actually brings benefit to your life.

- A poverty mindset. When you place your identity in what you have, you will never have enough and therefore you will never BE enough. Because all of your money is spent on trying to keep up with everyone else, you remain broke in more ways than one.

- A prideful mindset. This really manifests in the refusal to accept feedback. As often as warning the fool, Proverbs repeatedly praises the person who is able to receive correction. I'll just let Proverbs 12:1 speak for itself: "Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but whoever hates correction is stupid." (My wife probably won't let me read that one out loud to our kids yet.)

You get the idea. If you want to build a good life, put some thought into it. The difference between the builder and the bonehead is one starts before planning and the other plans before starting.

9. You spread GOSSIP like it's the GOSPEL.

"He who conceals hatred has lying lips, And he who spreads slander is a fool."

Proverbs 10:18

I used to teach a short section on gossip in my bible class that began with an assignment to simply nail down a solid definition of what gossip is. It's important to do this because we tend to just simply redefine it each time we want to do it.

Gossip is destructive to more than just the individual(s) it involves. It's destructive to the entire culture of your church, family, or organization. I DESPISE it and so does God. In Proverbs 6 there is a list of the seven things God hates. At least three of them have to do with a form of gossip and slander.

I may be a little overboard, but I believe there is perhaps no better indication that someone is not ready for spiritual leadership than when I become aware of their tendency to gossip. If you can't be trusted with the respect of peoples' lives, you certainly shouldn't be trusted with the responsibility of impacting peoples' lives.

Leaders are servants, and the more you serve people, the more they tend to trust you and open their lives to you. That means there is no place for a gossiper in leadership, otherwise, they will hurt the very people they are supposed to be serving.

Be leery of the person who will talk about everybody except Jesus. Don't play the gossip game, you'll always lose. If they'll talk to you about other people, rest assured they'll talk to other people about you. Don't be a fool.

10. You keep coming AROUND things that bring you DOWN.

"Like a dog that returns to its vomit is a fool who repeats his folly."

Proverbs 26:11

We thought our first child had to always wear socks as an infant. Our second child didn't wear socks until he was about two (we chilled out). Anyways, the bad thing about"infant socks" is that they are literally the size of an FBI ziplock baggy used to store a strand of hair. These things are TINY and therefore never reappear after getting lost, that is, until we noticed our seven pound poodle hacking up a massive mess of vomit and fabric one day. Before I could process what happened, he quickly snatched it back up and swallowed it again (disgusting I know).

After a trip or two to the vet for infant-sock-removal surgery (legit medical term) I was amazed to find that as sick and disoriented as our dog became when eating these socks, he never hesitated before snatching up another one and repeating the same cycle. The problem was he could not make the connection between his consistent misery and his persistent foolery.

Remember, foolishness is not doing something wrong, because we all do bad things. Foolishness is repeatedly doing something wrong. It's the inability to assess the things in your life that are prohibiting you from growing and that are causing you to live in a constant state of apathy.

CONCLUSION

Perhaps you think the book of Proverbs is a little harsh to be so blunt. While so much of the Kingdom of God is spiritual in nature, it comes with a lot of practicality as well. These are not things that we should just pray about. These are behaviors that must be dealt with relentlessly and with hostility. They require painful looks in the mirror, difficult conversations with loved ones, and daily keeping in step with the Holy Spirit.

The world has a robust system for turning out quality fools. If we are unaware of that we will fall prey to its assembly line. Don't float through life, don't follow the trends, and certainly don't avoid hearing the hard truth about your life. The Church doesn't need to just rise up, we need to wise up.

Time to start cracking open the daily Proverb again.