A Little Dangerous

When I was still living at home, with my parents, every once in a while my Dad had a saying I would hear him use:

“He knows just enough to make him dangerous.”

Usually, he would use this in reference to someone young or inexperienced who was attempting something that was likely going to end badly – like a teenage boy using his dad’s chainsaw without supervision. Many, many times throughout my life, this saying could have been applied to me. For instance, growing up with a nurse for a grandmother and an EMT for a Dad, and then traveling in various positions with a medical team in the mission field, I have often found myself trying to avoid the doctor by practicing medicine upon myself. But rather than actually being qualified, I really know just enough to make me dangerous, and usually, by the time I end up in the doctor’s office, I’m really a mess.

I’ll go ahead and confess that I do this in my spiritual life, too. I coast along really well until I hit a speed bump. At that point, I know just enough to be dangerous. I dig back into my memory bank and my experience and come up with a “remedy” that somehow never works. I talk to God all along the way, but rarely slow down to listen until finally, there is some kind of crash that forces me to stop. And then, I finally get quiet enough to hear God.

Bob Sorge says, “How did Jesus respond when the pain increased? He sought God more earnestly. This is what God wants you to do. If you’re really hurting, not only is this the safe response, it’s the response that Jesus demonstrated.”

As complicated as I make it, it really comes down to one simple thing: when it all falls apart, it’s always better to go to the one who made me and can put me all back together.

This post is part of a weekly book discussion on Bob Sorge’s The Fire of Delayed Answers. You don’t have to read the book to leave a comment! Go ahead! Make yourself at home! If you did write a response to this week’s chapter, go visit my friend and co-facilitator, Jason Stasyszen at Connecting to Impact and link it up at the widget! And last, but not least, Happy Thanksgiving!