paper planes

One thing that I'm learning from being an orientation leader is about know-it-all syndrome.

It's the pride in every man that speaks when they're unwilling to stop when they're lost and ask for directions. It's the pride in an orientee when they are asked whether they need help and they say "no." It's the pride in me that tells me that I can figure things out if I sit down and think and rationalize long enough.

There's so many a time when I ask whether a student knows where he/she is going, and I get a hesitant "yes" in response, so I leave them be. I find them 20 minutes later wandering around, looking for their destination. It's quite frustrating. If they had just simply asked at first, I would've obliged.

But it's pride that keeps them from asking. The same pride that keeps me from asking questions and says, "I'll figure it out fine." I understand why people in charge of me get frustrated at me sometimes.

I get ticked when we tell students what to do, and then they don't listen and screw up, and then blame us for it on their evaluations. I understand how professors feel now.

And I can't imagine how heartbreaking it is to God to see us play that game. What it's like for us to go 60 years of our lives trying to get through on our own, never stopping to ask for direction, feeling like He wouldn't give it to us even if we asked. I've rarely tried asking, but I figure as clueless as I am, God wants me to ask. On top of that, I never really have faith when I do ask; God isn't my only hope, He's my last resort.

I don't know it all, and I don't know why I fool myself into thinking it.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."
- Matthew 7:7

It's like paper airplanes. One of the few things I vividly remember going to my parents to ask help for was when I was making paper airplanes. I could never crease the paper accurately enough with my small hands to make sharp folds... and my planes always sucked. But I soon realized that my parents had long, nimble fingers to help with just that. And I asked my parents to make the folds every time I made paper planes. And you know what? They would always stop to help.

I have small hands, God holds the whole world in His. I don't live like I know it.