God Laughs
When will we ever learn how small we are? Each one of us is one of 7 billion people living on a planet among planets in a solar system among countless others in a galaxy that is one among 100 billion (or more) in a seemingly infinite universe. How does pride work its way into such tiny lives? When will we ever learn how much we need to lean upon God?
Beware of anyone who tells you he knows all the answers. Only the humble are wise. This world is too complicated for anyone to fully understand it.
Maybe you’ve heard of The Butterfly Effect, which states that small changes in initial conditions can create significant outcomes. The name comes from an illustration of a butterfly's wings flapping in one part of the world, creating tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately cause, say, a tornado to touch down somewhere on the other side of the planet. It’s an exaggeration, but it helps us see that initial decisions and changes that seem insignificant in the beginning can yield profound results we never could have foreseen.
Where does overconfidence come from? Part of the problem is hindsight, which we often say is 20-20. In his book, Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman writes about a thinking fallacy he calls “the illusion of validity.” Whether we know it our not, we craft narratives in our imagination to make sense of the past. Then, having convinced ourselves that yesterday was predictable, we foster overconfidence in our ability to predict the future.
Kahneman backed up his claims by sharing research from a study of 284 political pundits who were asked to make predictions regarding world events. Researchers examined more than 80,000 predictions. The results were devastating. The so-called experts performed more poorly than they would have if they had simply assigned equal probabilities to each of the outcomes. In Kahneman’s words, “dart-throwing monkeys” could have done a better job.
Human intellect and experience are far too limited for any of us to be overconfident. That’s why God laughs at the proud. Psalm 2:4 says, “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision” (cf. Ps. 59:8). Again, Psalm 37:13 reads, “But the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming.”
The smartest people are overwhelmed with a sense of how much they don’t know, not how much they know. Humility, not pride, is an expression of the true human condition.
God laughs at human pride. While he is opposed to the overconfident, he gives grace to the humble (1 Pet. 5:5). We are all so small. We know nothing. Our only hope is to accept his gracious offer of support and lean on him (Prov. 3:5-6).
Drew Kizer
