Insanity

I know most of you are thinking that I’m writing about myself. Actually I wanted to share the definition I heard the other day about insanity. Insanity is when we do the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

In one of my seminars we hand out a piece of wood with a hole in it and a square peg. Then I have everyone try to force the square peg through the round hole. They work and work trying all kinds of different angles hoping to accomplish the goal. Though many failed I had one person take out his knife and started cutting the edges off the square peg so it would fit though the hole. I commended him because he got the point. In order to get the round peg to go through the same hole he had to change something.

Assuming that the hole is everyone else in the world and the peg is us, we are going to have to change something. Many think they will change the round hole which means the difficult plus impossible task of changing people or we can change the peg which is us. I’m not telling you this will be easy, but it makes more sense than trying to change others. However, many try to accomplish the task of changing everyone else to fit in their world. I know some Christians are thinking, the Bible says come out from among them and be separate, not to change to be like them. This is not what I’m referring to.

I heard saying a on TV one day…If you want something you never had then you’re going to have to do something you’ve never done. Many years ago Thomas Edison invented or really tried to improve the electric light bulb. If he would have conducted the same experiment over and over never changing anything he would have never accomplished his goal. Each and every time he had to do something different or he would have continued to end up with the same results. He said, “I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.” I’ve also heard he said that he didn’t fail 6000 times, but he found 6000 ways it didn’t work.

Hopefully we won’t have to try everything 6000 times to find out what does and doesn’t work. First of all we wouldn’t live long enough to do so. Fortunately this was the purpose of the Bible and that was to help us to take the shortcuts to understand what works and what doesn’t. The Bible is not a rule book of do’s and don’ts, but an instruction book for how to live on this planet. We need to apply it in context and not try to fit it into our feelings, philosophy or behavior. What does it have to say about certain issues such as relationships, raising children or consequences of sin?

I know for myself I need to listen. I’ve always been the one to try everything that doesn’t work before I concede God was right. I’ve been trying to learn to go ahead a trust Him even if I don’t understand at the moment. I encourage you to do the same for your benefit.