navigating life

Watching kindergarten students is quite amusing. When my classroom was arranged differently, there were fewer ways to make it from one point to another. When I would call upon a student to come to the front of the room, he would often choose the most challenging route available to him and then push his way through until he reached his destination. The students chose the hard way because they did not realize that a better way existed. Their ignorance was either due to the inferior perspective that comes with being five and short or they simply chose the first route that came to mind without giving any thought to the efficiency of their steps.

We make poor choices for the same reasons. Sometimes our limitations impede our understanding. This is unavoidable. While God is infinite, we are not. Maturity will improve our situation, but even when fully grown we have limitations and will tend to make poor choices because of our limitations. Thankfully, God reveals His perspective to us, directing us through His word. Unfortunately, we tend to trust our own limited perspective and fail to trust Him. Spiritual growth will help us trust God's revealed perspective. We must work to trust Him more and more, but we will still falter.

If, on the other hand, we choose poorly in life simply because we have not thought things through, we are doomed to continue unabated until we wear ourselves out and give up or until we realize that we have been choosing poorly all along and need to make a change. This type of bad choices is far less excusable. We have the capacity to make a good choice; we simply fail to try. Either way we are left fighting to do what would have been so much easier if we had taken a different route. When kindergartens do it, teachers laugh and tell each other about it. But when adults do it, they hurt people, are unhappy, and resign themselves to doing as little as possible because life is too hard.