I don’t know about you, but I always seem to do things the hard way. If there is an easier path to something, I seem to manage to find the longer, harder path to get it done. I seem to be able to take something so simple and make it so complex.
One of my favorite authors, Marion Bond West in her book “Out of My Bondage” shared the story of the time she realized this tendency in her own life. One day when she and her husband were both walking across a lawn, they encountered a wet, dripping tree in their path. She struggled walking underneath the low branches getting all wet, while her husband merely altered his course and made a minor sidestep to go around the tree. (Page 22, “Out of My Bondage”)
I saw this play out in my own life once in a hilarious incident. We lived in the Atlanta, Georgia area for the 1980’s while Dennis served in various ministry roles. I was very lonely and homesick, and I missed my Mama so much. So, I just went out and adopted myself a Georgia Mama, my dear friend Dell. She attended our church and was so often there for us. Whether things were good, and we were laughing until we cried, or bad and we just needed a listening ear and a hug, she was always there.
One day when I was at her house, she said she needed my help moving Jack. Who is Jack you ask?? Well, he was this concrete planter with a donkey (Jack) pulling a concrete cart. Now Jack was a special family mascot and he always had to be facing in the direction of the nearby town of Lawrenceville, Ga. (I don’t know why.)
Let me tell you, Jack was hefty! We struggled, we strained, we stopped. We rested then repeated it all again. We finally got Jack moved and we were sitting there near exhaustion, trying to recover, my friend Dell looked at me and asked, “Raylene, WHY didn’t we take the dirt out before we tried to move Jack?!” Now that was a very good question! And I didn’t have a good answer except just to look at her with an “I never thought of that look!” We collapsed in laughter! There must have been 25 pounds of dirt in him!
I guess we were just too focused on the end result that we didn’t take time to think the process through. Maybe if we had just taken a few minutes on the front end to break it down into steps, we could have more easily (and painlessly) accomplished our mission and saved our backs in the process! We reached our goal, but maybe if we had assessed the situation more carefully, we would have thought about lightening the load by removing the dirt.
At any rate, we got Jack the Donkey moved and made a memory that will last a lifetime. Still I’m going to try to remember to take a few steps in the beginning of the process the next time to get things done more easily.
It doesn’t always have to be done the hard way!
