“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
Growing Dominion, Part 104
“Wisdom is before him that hath understanding; but the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth” (Prov. 17:24).
A wise man is prudent and watches his feet right in front of him. A fool’s eyes are “in the ends of the earth.” He can see this far because his head is in the clouds. We have to be careful here because occasionally a wise visionary sees the ends of the earth as well, as Abraham looked forward to and saw the city that God was building. But it is far easier for a fool to affirm the consequent here, and assume that he is a visionary, when he is nothing of the kind. A wise visionary is far more aware of the possibility of folly than the fool is.
This translates to the realms of enterprise and entrepreneurial efforts straight across. For every great success story, the kind that you would not have anticipated—like the guy at Starbucks who figured out that people would pay five bucks for a cup of coffee—there are countless others who thought that their blue sky vision was something other than folly. One of the best ways to tell the difference is that the fool is not willing to admit the possibility that the move is a foolish one. His eyes are in the ends of the earth.