Our stupid is often the beginning not the end

​I found this definition of stupid:

Actions driven by impulsiveness, ignorance, or stubbornness - essentially the opposite of wisdom.

That particular definition could serve as the biography for large chunks of my life. But increasingly, my biography has become God saying, "let me show you what I can create from stupid."

If one were to ask me to list the reasons I have a relationship with God, I wouldn't get far down that list before I got to all the things God has created from my stupidity. In fact, that list might become so all consuming that I'd never get back to the original list.

Is it possible that the final destination for all of us in this world is supposed to be wisdom, and that all roads to wisdom run through stupid? Is it possible that God is far more interested in our transformation than our perfection; in our transformation than our happiness?

If the answer is yes, then it makes sense why forgiving our mistakes comes so naturally to God. Because while we are spending time beating ourselves up for impulsive or ignorant choices, God has already gone to work creating transformation out of them. I mean, really, if transformation is God's goal, what use are we if we walk around believing we have nothing to transform?

Tomorrow, I will deliver the keynote address at a conference in Marion, VA: Reviving Hope in Our Backyard, Addressing Addiction and Trauma. The title of my presentation is, "Unravelling the Roots, The Link Between Childhood Adversity and Addiction."

I have spent the better part of the last decade unravelling the roots of so much destruction in my life. And the deeper I unravel, the more I discover God. Because there is only one reasonable explanation, to me anyway, for me standing on a stage with the darkest days of my life not only having meaning, but beauty.

It's symbolic, in many ways. Symbolic that I have spent so much of my life giving stupid center stage, accompanied by all the self-hate and shame and guilt that tag along with it, and yet tomorrow there that same stupid will be, center stage, only it will not look or feel like self-hate and shame and guilt, it will look and feel like God.

Like transformation.

Like wisdom.

If you are giving stupid center stage in your life, please know that God is getting ready to steal that stage. While you're beating yourself up, God is creating. While you're imagining the kind of life you would have had without all the stupid, God is creating beauty that couldn't have been created without it.

The final destination is wisdom. Wisdom is born out of transformation. And transformation often runs through stupid.

The goal is never stupid, it's not our desire, but when we encounter it, it's healing to know stupid is often the beginning, not the end.

Thank God and amen.