Wisdom and Folly

I was reading in my Mother's journal about Solomon.

She was saying that she always wondered how such a wise man
could have fallen so far. Then she read his words in Ecclesiastes,
"I set my heart to know wisdom and folly."
She thought that this mixture of seeking caused his downfall.

I've been thinking about this.

In the garden of Eden,
God forbade them to eat from the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil.
They knew only good and He wanted to keep it that way.

The apostle Paul exhorted the Christians
to be innocent about what was evil
and knowledgeable about what was good;
to think on the things that are true, noble,
just, pure, lovely, good, virtuous,
and praiseworthy.

Yesterday,
I heard the story of an acquaintance of ours
who grew up in the "church"
and has a believing wife
and several small children.

Awhile ago, he began going into chat rooms
with atheists to argue for the case
of Christianity.

Recently,
he called his friends and family
and said, "You're wasting your time.
There is no God."

When I heard about this yesterday,
my heart went out to him
and I thought about the recent events in his life
that may have made him vulnerable to
the thought 'There is no God.'

But then,
I read my mother's journal.

If the wisest man in the world
could not withstand the pursuit
of the knowledge of folly,-
for the fool says in his heart,
there is no God,-
how can any of us
enter into folly's chat room
and expect to come out of that room
with wisdom as a trophy?

But our hearts still go out to him
and I know the Great Shepherd's
heart goes out to him, too.