Goldfish in the Morgue Devotional

The Rise and Fall of a Supervillain

The Rise and Fall of a Supervillain

Scripture Passage: 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Focal Verse: …but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong. ~ 1 Corinthians 1:27 (NASB 95)

It’s a common trope of crime thrillers or superhero movies. The villain/killer is always six steps ahead of the hero. Always anticipating every move the protagonist is going to make before the hero even considers it. The best villains are brilliant. They are grandmasters of chess. They have contingencies upon contingencies and nothing ever catches them off guard. In fact, in many of these movies, books, or comic books, these criminal masterminds are nearly omniscient. It’s as if they can see into the very minds of those trying to bring them to justice.

In the Sherlock Holmes stories of Arthur Conan Doyle, it was a common complaint the great detective would make that the above trope was not, in fact, realistic and that most criminals and most crimes were so mundane as to be outright boring (this attitude, of course, changed with the introduction of Professor Moriarty, of course). Holmes described the criminals he encountered as being dull-witted with very little imagination. Their crimes, he often lamented, were banal at best.

In my experience, Holmes’ assessment is far more realistic than the Hannibal Lectors and Doctor Dooms of fiction. For the most part, criminals are at best, lazy. At worst, dumb as a box of doorknobs. Don’t get me wrong. They think they’re smart. They often believe they’ve come up with the perfect crime, or at least a brilliant one. They manipulate evidence. The stage crime scenes. They come up with great alibis. All to trick detectives to get them off their scents. More times than not, their cleverness is often their own undoing. It’s through these manipulations they’re most often caught. Hubris, often, leads to their own capture.

Still on the subject of Man’s foolishness versus God’s wisdom, Paul, in this passage, is emphasizing to the Corinthians the inevitable outcome of a battle of wits between us and God. The reality is, such a battle will never go well for us. As the old insult goes, we will quickly discover that we entered the battle completely unarmed.

But to add insult to injury, this passage also reveals something else about God for us to keep in mind. He has a terrific sense of humor. He’s not just infinitely wiser than we are, He likes to use our own foolishness to demonstrate His superiority. This, of course, isn’t done out of meanness. He’s not trying to humiliate. But he is trying to humble. And trust me when I tell you, we cannot serve God effectively without humility. So, whenever we find ourselves developing a haughty spirit, just be on the lookout. God’s about to send something our way to remind us of how foolish we’re being. Learn to enjoy God’s sense of humor. Learn from it. And remember…there’s no way our supervillainy can ever match wits with God.

Father God, I pray that you will continue to keep us humble so that we will be more receptive and more malleable to your will and purpose. Help us LORD, to put aside haughtiness in our own knowledge and wisdom to rely more fully on you and your guidance.

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Interested in the book that inspired this devotional, check out I Died Swallowing a Goldfish and Other Life Lessons from the Morgue by clicking the link below!