I’ve Been A Fool

There is an old song that says, “Everybody plays the fool sometime.”

If I’m being honest, I laughed when that lyric popped into my head during Bible study because it is true. Everybody does play the fool sometimes. We make decisions we knew better than to make. We revisit habits we promised we’d leave behind. We entertain thoughts God already delivered us from. We return to things that have a 100% success rate of hurting us.

Then I read Proverbs 26:11.

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

Suddenly the song wasn’t quite as funny.

I used to think that verse was simply gross imagery. Then I learned more about dogs in biblical times, and it completely changed how I read it.

Dogs were not household pets curled up on a couch. There was no Purina. No pet insurance. No dog treats shaped like bacon. Most dogs in biblical times were scavengers. They roamed streets and wilderness areas eating whatever they could find. Much of what they consumed made them sick because they lacked the discernment to know what was harmful and what was helpful.

What came out was often a direct result of what had gone in.

Solomon’s point wasn’t really about dogs.

It was about us.

The dog returns because it cannot discern that the thing making it sick is the very thing it keeps consuming.

The more I sat with that reality, the more uncomfortable it became.

Because I have done that.

Not once.

Many times.

I’ve returned to anger after God showed me peace.

I’ve returned to people pleasing after God showed me freedom.

I’ve returned to unhealthy spending habits after learning stewardship.

I’ve returned to hypersensitivity after God taught me not every disagreement is a rejection.

I’ve returned to thought patterns that left me exhausted.

Not because they were good for me.

Because they were familiar.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:23, “Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.”

That verse has been challenging me lately.

Some things are not necessarily sinful.

They’re just stupid.

I don’t mean that flippantly.

I mean they don’t produce what God is trying to produce in us.

The spending habit that creates financial stress.

The need to make everyone happy.

The tendency to replay conversations for three days.

The emotional reaction that feels justified in the moment but leaves destruction behind.

Not everything that is permissible is profitable.

One thing that stood out to me was why a dog returns to its vomit in the first place.

It’s often hungry.

Empty.

Vulnerable.

Its immediate need becomes stronger than its memory.

And isn’t that true of us?

The emptiness of loneliness can make us revisit relationships God rescued us from.

The emptiness of insecurity can make us seek approval from people who were never meant to define us.

The emptiness of fear can make us return to old coping mechanisms.

The emptiness of discomfort can make us romanticize our past.

The problem is that willpower rarely wins against an unaddressed emptiness.

That is why wisdom must govern what emotions cannot.

The Israelites understood this struggle.

God delivered them from Egypt through miracles that should have been impossible. He sent plagues. He defeated Pharaoh. He split the Red Sea. He led them across on dry ground.

Yet in Numbers 11:4-5, they started talking about going back.

Not because Egypt was good.

Because the wilderness was hard.

They remembered the fish.

They remembered the cucumbers.

They remembered the food.

They forgot the slavery.

They forgot the beatings.

They forgot the oppression.

Suffering in the present created selective amnesia about the past.

They remembered the menu but not the misery.

I wish I couldn’t relate.

But I can.

When life gets difficult, it is amazing how quickly old versions of ourselves start making suggestions.

Just get angry.

Just control everything.

Just spend the money.

Just make everybody happy.

Just go back.

But going back always costs more than we remember.

It reminds me of Lot’s wife.

God was literally rescuing Lot and his family from Sodom. Angels were leading them out. Their deliverance was unfolding in real time.

The instruction was simple.

Don’t look back.

Yet Genesis 19:26 tells us she did exactly that.

She looked back at what God was delivering her from.

I don’t think she simply turned her head.

I think she turned her heart.

Her body left Sodom, but part of her still belonged there.

How often have I done the same thing?

How often has God moved me forward while I kept glancing backward?

How often have I mourned things God was removing because I confused familiarity with goodness?

Ironically, this lesson follows me every day on walks with Bo.

Bo is reactive. He can pass a dog, squirrel, leaf, shadow, or suspicious-looking blade of grass and be perfectly fine. Then suddenly he decides he needs to look back at the thing we’ve already passed.

The problem is he keeps moving while looking backward.

And almost every time he does it, he stumbles.

He trips.

He gets tangled.

He loses his footing.

Why?

Because that’s what happens when you’re trying to move forward while fixated on what’s behind you.

The dog in Proverbs returns because it’s in his nature.

Bo looks back because it’s in his nature.

The Israelites wanted Egypt because it was familiar.

Lot’s wife looked back because her heart wasn’t fully free.

And if I’m honest, I’ve done all of the above.

Which reveals something deeper.

The issue isn’t simply behavior.

It’s identity.

God isn’t merely trying to stop us from doing unhealthy things.

He’s transforming us into people who no longer crave them.

People whose nature is being changed.

People who no longer confuse bondage with comfort.

People who no longer mistake dysfunction for home.

People who trust that if God removed it, He had a reason.

One line from this study continues to echo in my heart:

Stop trying to retrieve what God removed.

Some of us are trying to dig up things God buried.

Some of us are trying to reopen doors God closed.

Some of us are trying to revisit places that nearly destroyed us.

It can take years to heal a wound and one season to reopen it.

It can take years to build freedom and one moment to revisit captivity.

The grace of God is bigger than our mistakes, but wisdom learns from them.

God didn’t bring Israel out of Egypt so they could return.

God didn’t bring Lot’s family out of Sodom so they could look back.

God didn’t bring me out of anger, people pleasing, unhealthy spending, and hypersensitivity so I could keep revisiting them every time life gets uncomfortable.

And He didn’t bring you out for that either.

Forward may be unfamiliar.

Forward may be difficult.

Forward may require trusting God more than your feelings.

But forward is where freedom lives.

And freedom is always better than whatever is waiting behind you.