A View from a Different Perspective
by Janice Seney

He was a forty year old farmer trapped in a four year old body.  He talked of tractors, combines, plows, and the great smell of the hog pens.   My head was trying to adjust to listening to such a deep wise voice coming from such a small body.  He stood with his thumbs hooked in his pockets and spoke about International and John Deere tractors like my grown son would have talked about a new fancy sports car.

Steve was his name and the little four year old had come to visit his grandma, Mable.  As we drove out to visit the Amish community the little farmer began to get sleepy and snuggled up against his grandma just like any little four year old.

I was riding in the back seat marveling at the horse and buggy that was approaching.  It contained a young mother dressed in black with a black bonnet and a small blond headed girl dressed in black also.

Suddenly a terrible odor filled the car.  I began to look around to locate the source of the fowl odor.  Off to the left was a huge hog pen.  The little farmer raised his head and said, "I just love that smell" then laid his head back onto his grandmother's large soft bosom.

As we parked in front of the Amish store, a horse and buggy was tied to the hitching post by the front door.  The smell of fresh horse manure was the normal atmosphere.  We opened the screen door and entered another world.  The store clerk dressed in black with a long beard was speaking to a fellow Amish in German.  He raised his head and in English welcomed us to his store.  

The aisles were crowded with home grown produce, homemade candies, jams, and hand made products. Amish ladies came in delivering fresh eggs.  I stepped behind a tall wooden shelf into a row lined with shoeboxes.  Opening one small box I found a tiny pair of small high top simple black shoes for a child of about three or four years old.

From the front counter conversation in German continued to flow freely.  Steve, our little farmer, was investigating each item with the curiosity and ignorance of a four year old.  Extending his finger to touch a round wax coated slab of cheese, I overheard Steve mutter "rubber.”  I muffled a laugh.  He was so wise and yet so inexperienced.

At that moment I realized how God must view our great insight and wisdom.   He must chuckle as he watches us expound upon our favorite topics and I am sure He laughs when we pronounce with absolute certainy  our opinion on a matter.

1 Cor 1:18-25  For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent."  Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?  For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.  For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom;  but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness,  but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

So the next time you hear mortal man expound upon all his great knowledge, don’t be impressed.  He may be like the little four year old; so knowledgeable in some areas yet an inexperienced ignorant child in the things of God.

Know that God chuckles when the wise of this world extend their finger of knowledge to touch Him then declare from their tiny perspectives “rubber.”

Belief in God opens a doorway into a treasure house of understanding, knowledge, and wisdom that is not of this world.  

1 Cor 2:14  But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.