By: Atty. Marlo T. Cristobal
As l regularly read the Scripture, l sometimes get incredibly overwhelmed by some spiritual insights that missed to unravel initially.
God reveals two kinds of wisdom: the wisdom of Heaven and the wisdom of this world. (Please click to read, 1Corinthians 2:6-7, KJV). Earthly wisdom is the knowledge and insights we get from our schools and from earthly experiences and circumstances. One classic example of this kind of wisdom is dramatized in my all time favorite Hollywood movie, “The Godfather,” (if only for its ingenious down-to-earth life drama), espousing a diabolic axiom, “keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” and its many other macabre axioms that people take as wisdom or smart.
God or divine wisdom simply refers to God’s words all sheltered in the Bible.
My retirement from an extremely high-pressure legal job in a big time business conglomerate mysteriously sent my life slowly gliding to a serious affair with the Bible. While still working, I constantly entertained an earnest dream to voraciously read books (the Bible then was not in the genre of books l yearned to heavily indulged in) and to cook, later in my retirement. All because literature and philosophy was my extreme interest in all my life of schooling. In fact in my undergraduate course in U.P. Diliman, please allow me the candor and humility solely intended to drive home my point more convincingly and authentically , l got a flat “1” grade in a philosophy subject, a rare feat in that school and for a mere regular student like me.
Interest in cooking was a circumstantial flowering in my elementary grade life when my elder brother and l were familially assigned to cook meals for our poor family out there in the boondocks of Cagayan Valley.
As fate had obviously decided, l never got the opportunity to read the kind of books l greatly wanted to read initially. For some invisible, compelling force, l began to first flirt with the Bible until it became an exceptionally grave and regular affair. I did not realize then at that point that my love story with the Bible was likewise a true to form episode — the Bible being by all definitions both literature and philosophy. My perspective drastically changed. Whereas before, as a lawyer, l used to see and evaluate things and life circumstances from the standards of the human law, what law is violated or applicable and what is right or wrong thereunder. In contrast, l now relate and judge all things that l see or happen around me according to God’s wisdom.
Thus at this point, l cannot hold myself back expressing my excruciating sentiments against the leaders in the Executive and Legislative branches of our government who robbed our people blind in such an atrocious magnitude and duration to render, in a manner of speaking, small time the wickedness Hitler dealt the more than 6M Jews he sent en masse to the gas chamber. These bogus political leaders (the fellow evil breed of “false prophets” that God condemns) that we empowered, but exuberantly possessed of the prowling spirit of Judas Iscariot, chose to betray us whom they solemnly swore to serve as their employer and master pursuant to our basic law and republican regime. They are irrevocably doomed to a scary fate just as Judas Iscariot was doomed to a horrible fate — both right here on earth and the world to come where the biblical “God wrath” patiently but unalterably awaits. I am not the one judging them, the relevant words of God all spread in the Scripture are the ones judging them, words whose fine details and throbbing spirit, l happen to know and feel very well that l now find owing to express their essence herein.
The world of the Bible, by comparison, tends to make the law of man sounds dull and perfunctory. The world of God’s words transfixes one to a wisdom he never felt or thought before, triggers goose bumps in his body and assaults his spirit with awe as God decides to impart His wisdom to him. God’s words spark in me an overwhelmingly mysterious and awesome, towering feelings. Maybe because God’s thoughts are much, much higher than man’s (Please click: Isaiah 55:8-9), and, moreover, that His words set forth in the Bible carry God’s power and carry His spirit. (Please click: Hebrews 4:12, Isaiah 55:11, and John 6: 63, GNT).
Consider for instance the wisdom that God is in absolute control of every detail and course of human affairs (Please click: Proverbs 19:21, Lamentations 3:37, Ephesians 1:11, Psalms 135:6, Isaiah 45: 5-7), a divine will that boggles the human mind as too overwhelming and too super immeasurable.
My constant bonding with the Scripture has somehow sharpened my senses toward human occurrences as they relate to God’s wisdom. In this light, God lately made me perceive again His repetitive narrative, “It is not your will but My will be done.”
I strongly felt such a message here in my personal story. For more than 2 years now, l have been assiduously planning and preparing to have a tour in Europe, in 9 countries therein. l, together with my wife, have been dying to visit these places for the first time because of the intense interest they generated in me based on their histories l read. Our preparations for this trip were complicated but nonetheless completed, and we were about to make the initial payments to finally clinch the tour package and to fly supposedly last March.
But about 3 days after last February 28 when US launched its “Epic Fury” war against lran, l saw on TV the dreadful exchanges by the warring countries of extremely destructive ballistic missiles, drones and jet bombers so fierce, incessant and unlimited that if l have been ignorant of God’s words, l would have concluded right then that the end of planet earth has come. I immediately instructed my wife to hold everything and desist talking officially to anyone about this trip. The sheer fury of the war made me think that my fear for this trip was legitimate and its risks to life or limb are too high to ignore. I was extremely disappointed to see my Europe dream, then almost a reality, suddenly shattered, even if it was only temporarily. Since the blazing fire of travel kept burning in me in those moments, l had to find a vent for this fire by looking for a country of tourist charm but safe and away from the risks of the Middle East war. South Korea was my quick choice, my unplanned and sudden substitute to travel to — and obviously the choice of God intervention, for why the spur-of-the-moment and accidental choice of South Korea should now prevail over the long time in the planning and passionately dreamed Europe?
After my abandoned Europe trip l had to find solace in the wisdom of God: “Who can command things to happen without the Lord’s permission?” (Please click Lamentations 3:37, NLT). With a discomposing fear and the obvious risks a Europe trip posed, l obliged myself to yield to God’s words: “People may plan all kinds of things, but the Lord’s will is going to be done.” (Please click: Proverbs 19:21, GNT). And l had to bear in mind in humility God stern warning not to boast about the future (like my then future Europe travel target about 2 years before) for we do not know what it has in store for us. (Please click Proverbs 27:1). In contrast, God has not put any obstacles so far to our never contemplated, much less planned, but rather sheer accidental South Korea travel. Obviously, l told myself, because that country is God’s will for us. Hence, this month off we go to where God’s will leads us — South Korea.
God is in complete control of each one of us and each life circumstances, but gave everyone free will to choose evil or good. (Please click Deuteronomy 30:19, NLT). Everyone of us is His special, deliberate creation. As proof, God revealed from eternity that He had put a mark on the hand of every person to maintain His connection with and control of us all. (Please don’t fail to click Job 37:7, GNT). God’s declaration way back in eternity on His mark on every man, human generation in the later part only of the 19th century confirmed or discovered this mark which turned out to be the fingerprint of man. God rivets His connection and control vis-a-vis the human race when He foreordained, “The eyes of the LORD are everywhere, keeping watch . . .” ( Please click Proverbs 15:3, NIV, Psalms 53:2, NLT)
God had issued from His throne in eternity many declarations about the facts and details of life that only later generations, though painfully slow, discovered or confirmed one after another as true in a show of weak capacity of the human mind to gain quick and clear grasp of God’s thoughts. To God in fact human intelligence is foolishness. (Please click 1Corinthians 3:19). And those who don’t believe or doubt Him or His words, are, to Him, plain and simple “fools” (Please click Psalms 14:1)!
