When Stupid Comes Back Around
HERE'S HOW I FLIPPED A CAR THE FIRST TIME
It started with a party invite just two miles from my house. A girl I was dating was hanging out with me at home, and we had no car to get there because the master cylinder on my car was shot. No brakes. But the road was mostly flat. I told her, "It's only two miles. I'll drive slowly. I'll stick my foot out the door to stop the car." She gave me a look. I told her it would work. And then I proved it.
I pulled onto the road, got the car up to ten miles an hour, shifted into neutral, opened the door, stuck my tennis shoe to the pavement, and stomped—like makeshift anti-lock brakes—until the car rolled to a stop. "See?" I told her. "We'll be fine."
We made it to the party without any problems.
At one in the morning, we headed home. Cruising west on Rathmell Road with a mile of straight road ahead, that's when a friend from the party pulled up beside me in his turbocharged car. He crossed the double yellow, revved his engine, daring me to race.
He knew his car would smoke mine. What he didn't factor in was that I love competition and I don't pass up a good challenge.
So I slammed the gas pedal to the floor, the same position as the useless brake pedal.
He blew past me and stopped at the red light at Parsons Avenue. I was barreling in, fast... and brakeless.
As I approached the intersection, another car was making a green-lighted left turn toward me in the eastbound lane, and my buddy was dead stopped in the westbound lane.
I had three choices:
Hit the turning car head-on.
Smash into my friend stopped at the light.
Cut right of my friend's car through the berm, and try to make the northbound turn onto Parsons Avenue.
I chose the third option.
I slid sideways through the berm and across two lanes. Just as the back quarter panel clipped the guy wire from a telephone pole, it launched my car into the air with the wheels facing the sky.
When we hit the ground, I felt the roof crush in. I wasn't wearing a seatbelt, so the impact shoved me under the steering wheel and down into the floorboard. I was now upside down and ironically crumpled up against the brake pedal.
The car was totaled.
Somehow, I wasn't injured. The girl with me wasn't so lucky. Her earlobe detached in a jagged rip from her earring on impact. She was bleeding and shaken. The ER stitched it back on. It healed fine. But it left a small, crooked scar to remind her she once got in a car with no brakes… with teenaged Greg.
The Moral of this true story: When you race a car with no brakes or ride with someone whose car has none, you have no one to blame but yourself.
As the saying goes, "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes." Maybe it’s a flipped car. Maybe it’s a scarred earlobe. Maybe it’s something worse. But the lesson is the same: if you ignore wisdom, don’t be surprised, and don’t blame anyone else when the stupid prizes get handed out.
PROVERBS 19:3 SAYS IT THIS WAY
"People ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then are angry at the Lord."
Proverbs 19:3 reminds us why we’ve chosen the English word stupid throughout this series. It’s willful foolishness—kesil—the kind of stupidity that races a car through life with full knowledge there are no brakes. And when life crashes, that same person has the audacity to get mad at God.
“God, why would You let this happen to me?”
“God, why didn’t You stop me?”
“I thought You were supposed to protect me.”
Or the classic, “Where were You when everything fell apart?”
ISAIAH 8:21
About 200 years later, we find a verse in the middle of an Israelite story that illustrates Proverbs 19:3.
“They will go hungry and rage and curse their king and their God. They will look up to heaven.”
Exegetical Note: "They will look up to heaven" isn't a cry for help. It's not repentance. It's a defiant reaction of frustration. In Hebrew, the phrase implies a physical turning upward (ufanah le-ma'lah), but context makes the intent clear. It's someone lifting their face in anger. They've ignored God's warnings, and now that circumstances have collapsed, their body language says what their heart refuses to admit: I wrecked this, but I'm blaming You.
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING IN ISAIAH
The people of Judah were in a mess. And it wasn’t because God had disappeared or failed them. It was because they stopped listening.
God had been speaking through Isaiah, warning them, calling them back, offering a better way. But they didn’t want it. They wanted quicker answers.
So instead of turning to God, they went to mediums—people who claimed to hear from spirits—and necromancers, who said they could talk to the dead to get answers about the future. They were asking the wrong people the wrong questions and getting the wrong answers.
And then things got worse. A brutal empire called Assyria was closing in. Food was running out. People were scared. But instead of saying, “Maybe we should’ve listened,” they blamed God. They looked up toward heaven and shook their fists. Hungry, hopeless, and raging at the only One who could’ve actually helped them.
They walked straight into the wreck with their eyes wide open. And now that it had all come crashing down, they were furious that God hadn’t bailed them out.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
Sound familiar? Blaming God for consequences you brought on yourself? No? Not ringing a bell? Let me jog your memory.
THE BREAKUP
You put your whole heart into it. You were planning the rest of your life together. But the relationship crashed and burned, and now you’re left sorting through the emotional mess. You prayed for God to heal it, but He didn’t. Now you're alone, and your heart is wrecked. And if you're honest, it hurts even more because deep down, you knew they weren’t a follower of Jesus. You knew what Scripture says about being unequally yoked. But you went for it anyway, hoping you'd be the exception—the dating missionary. Now you’re heartbroken and frustrated with God for not protecting you from a relationship He never approved in the first place.
THAT CHURCH LET YOU DOWN
You’re spiritually discouraged and disconnected. You’re disappointed that “the church isn’t meeting your needs.” You feel alone in your struggles and wish someone had noticed. But as you trace it back, you realize you stopped showing up. No small group was convenient enough. You never invited anyone out for lunch. You never served in a ministry. You just occasionally showed up late on Sundays and left quickly. You made big decisions without prayer, without godly counsel, without community. And now you’re blaming the church—when you were never truly engaging with the family of the church in the first place. Now you’re standing in Kroger, talking to an acquaintance, saying that church is just full of cliques and cares more about programs than real relationships.
BUMMED OUT WITH PEOPLE
You don’t trust people as much as you used to. Relationships feel tense or distant, and you’re convinced it’s just how life is now. But if you follow the thread backward, it leads to something you never dealt with. Someone hurt you. Disappointed you. Maybe it was a friend, a couple of people at church, or a family member. And instead of forgiving, you held on to it. You replayed the moment. Nursed the wound. Let it harden into resentment. But He didn’t put that relational wall there. Your bitterness did. And He’s still ready to help you tear it down.
THE MONEY PRESSURE
You’re stressed and drowning in bills. You keep praying for a financial breakthrough, wondering why God isn’t showing up with the blessing. But it wasn’t God who got you here. It was your wanter. It works just fine. The credit cards. The impulse buys. The car you couldn’t afford, but in your mind just had to have it at only 3% interest. You never built a budget. You’ve ignored what God says wisdom with money looks like. And now that the weight of debt is crushing you, you’re frustrated with Him for not fixing it. The truth is, you didn’t invite Him into your finances until after the damage was done.
YOU CAN FIX STUPID
Proverbs 19:3 doesn’t say people ruin their lives and God walks away. It says people ruin their lives and then get angry at the Lord. But what if, instead of looking up to the sky to blame God, you humbled your heart towards his wisdom?
What if you looked at the wreckage—not to blame, but to learn? What if you traced back the pain, the isolation, the debt, the brokenness, and instead of disappointment with God or that church, you repented and participated in authentic community?
Isaiah’s people looked up and cursed. You can look up, come clean and take responsibility for ignoring God’s wisdom. Own what was yours to own. Name the decision. And invite God into what’s left.
Stupidity may have gotten you into the situation.
But surrender to God’s wisdom is what gets you out.
©2025 Greg McNichols, All rights reserved.
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