Shortcut!

Don’t you love a good shortcut? That feeling when you had a long walk ahead, but found a way under a fence and cut the time in half? Or when you exit the freeway to avoid traffic and it works?  What a great feeling! I once shaved an hour from a hike with the Boy Scouts and when they came dragging in—covered in mud—I was sitting there freshly showered, with a towel around my neck. It was the greatest feeling in the world!

But some shortcuts are bad—and not just the ones that land you in thorn bushes, miles from the trail.  It is bad to take metaphorical shortcuts. To do less than the complete assignment. To skim a reading. To draft a poorly organized paper because you were not willing to first write an outline.  To do fewer reps in your workout or run fewer laps or otherwise fail to prepare.

But EVERYBODY DOES IT, right?  No.  MOST PEOPLE do it. And if you refuse to take shortcuts, you will go farther than MOST PEOPLE.  Olympic athletes do not take shortcuts. That’s why they win. Valedictorians, surgeons, marathon runners, great artists, inventors, thinkers, and writers do not take shortcuts. In fact, the one thing successful people have in common is that they push themselves to go all the way, all the time. They do not cut corners.

“So Joshua took the ENTIRE land, in keeping with all that the Lord had told Moses” Joshua 11:23. 

God gave Moses instructions, Moses gave them to Joshua, and Joshua took no shortcuts.  He did everything “that the Lord had told Moses.”  And God blessed him.

God, teach us to be thorough, to work hard, to push ourselves, to do our absolute best, to obey you 100%, not 99%.  But we are realistic; give us the wisdom to know when to ease up on expectations and when to PUSH THROUGH WITH TOTAL EFFORT.  As your children, bless us with hard work and high expectations, but also with GRACE for ourselves and others who fail.

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