One early evening my wife and I were returning home, I think from the Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris. We were driving carefully along a country road because patches of fog limited visibility in the darkness. I slowed as we approached a carrefour when suddenly we saw a fellow out jogging!

It troubled me a bit because in a tiny instant of inattentiveness it would be so easy to run over someone like that. We began to speculate as to why in the world he would be out jogging on a foggy night like that.

“He’s probably doing it for his health,” I said, and we both chuckled.

Yup, that fellow probably had some of the healthiest, fog-filled lungs anywhere around. And if a car hit him, he would have healthy lungs during his brain surgery or healthy lungs in his wheelchair with a broken back.

Didn’t make a lot of sense to me.

He was a kind of human “oxymoron.” An oxymoron, according to YourDictionary.com is, “a figure of speech in which opposite or contradictory ideas or terms are combined (Ex.: thunderous silence, sweet sorrow).”

A healthy fog runner might also be used as an example.

I’ve thought of some other oxymorons. How about the Paradise Motel? Have you noticed that motels by this name are a good ways from paradise?

Or “adult bookstore,” which offers books, films, etc. for people too childish to act like grownups.

While I’m on a roll, I might mention people who say they don’t want to commit their lives to the Lord because they want to be “free.” Free to lie, be unfaithful, steal, and various and sundry other activities.

“Free!” Ha! Someone who’s tied up in this kind of thing should try to get loose and he’ll see how “free” he really is. “Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me.” (Ps. 19:13, NIV)

Whilst I’m raving on let me note something: lots of folks see committed Christians, and think there is something oxymoronic about us. I’ll admit it. Giving up our will to try to follow His will seems a bit moronic to those who don’t know Him as does believing that a giving heart makes you richer (not necessarily at the bank but with a richness of life, and a provision for our needs down here, plus healthy deposits in the bank of heaven).

This dying to self in order to really live seems about as intelligent as running in the fog to someone who doesn’t really know the Lord Jesus.

“Then he said to them all: ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?’” (Luke 9:23-25, New International Version)

The crazy thing is that those who have found happiness have abandoned the search, yielded their life to Another, and spend their time living out what this Other One created them to be.

I suppose your definition of a “moronic life” depends on how you see reality. If you believe, as the beer commercial asserted, “You only go around once so grab for all the gusto you can get,” well, there you go—eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
But, if you believe there is a good God, who loves us, who gave his Son for us, and who detailed the secrets of a fulfilled life in His Word, well, you’re going to live another way.

The contrast is pretty stark; you either “grab for all the gusto you can get” right now, or you believe that your eternal soul is more valuable than the entire world and that God has described the best way of all to live in His Word. You bet your life on the way you choose.

One of the two is living like a moron.
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Hmmm …
“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865)

Staying Awake During Preaching
davidscoffeestains.com
The boy was little but he was a connoisseur. He’d endured the synagogue leader most weeks but various and sundry visitors also came from Jerusalem. These fellows seemed to think that they were there with Moses when God gave him the Law on Mt. Sinai.
Most of them could put a hyperactive bumblebee to sleep, though. These teachers were much more interested in what they had to say than the longsuffering people who attended the synagogue were. Who cared whether you could eat an egg laid on the sabbath or not? And who could get excited about a long sermon about how to wash your hands correctly?
The rabbis and teachers of the Law, that’s who.”    Check out our website for the third installment of our e-book– (look to the right of this page and click on e-book)