Once, while on a family outing–with the extended family–one of my uncles told me to run ahead to see something cool, and he emphasized “run fast!”
Now I’m not normally a runner, and not even a huge fan of doing what someone randomly tells me what to do, but I ran.
Took off running across the flat desert.
The desert-y part looked a little like this:
Minus the basalt rocks sticking up from the ground.
But do you see the problem?
How about in this picture:
There’s this little thing called perspective.
Where you stand determines how you see the world in front of you.
Experience helps.
So, when I took off at a high speed run, trusting the adult who said “run” and seeing a flat stretch of earth before me, I had no idea I was headed for a cliff.
He knew.
The others who hollered for me to stop knew.
But I didn’t know.
I trusted what I could see, and the voice of a person I thought was trustworthy.
But here’s the thing. There was something a little like this ahead:
It wasn’t obvious.
Especially if you focus on one or two features ahead.
Without careful observation–or perhaps prior knowledge–it isn’t immediately visible in the first two photos I posted either. But it’s there. This canyon. This cliff.
How often do we run ahead based on what we think we see?
How often do we listen to a voice simply because of their position or the connection to us?
When it comes right down to it, each and everyone of us should take time to evaluate what we see. Do you see the whole picture? Have you considered the dangers ahead? Is there anyone pushing you to a particular path that maybe shouldn’t be?
And ultimately, are you leaning on your own understanding as you go?