Stubbornness
I had a good laugh at my own expense this morning. My laptop sat on my desk and I was prepared to “write,” in fact I stated to write, but then I realized I had forgotten to plug in my mouse. This is significant because I truly hate using the touchpad, and so have a wireless mouse, but to make it work I have to pull the small USB dongle from the mouse and stick it into the USB port on my laptop – which takes less than five seconds. Still, I just left the mouse sitting there, and every time I needed the mouse function I was reminded that I had not plugged in my mouse and struggled to use the touchpad – the touchpad I hate and was, a minute into my writing, frustrated with. Finally, out of frustration I grabbed the mouse, stuck in the dongle, and could now use the mouse. Putting my hand on the mouse and watching the cursor move I had one thought – What a stubborn moron (pronounced “mooo-ron”) I can be!
Immediately I thought of the Prodigal Son after his flame out, sitting in the fields feeding swine (Luke 15:16), “and he would have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat; and no man gave unto him.” Undoubtedly, his stubbornness was keeping him away from the obvious answer – go home! But he couldn’t bring himself to do it, until, finally, “he came to himself” or in some translations, “he came to his senses.” (Luke 15:17) We all know how that turned out.
No, I am not equating by degree my unwillingness to connect my mouse to the Prodigal Son’s reluctance to return home, the stakes in his internal battle were much greater, but it occurs to me that they are both evidence of stubbornness that holds us back, keeps us from being what we can and are meant to be. Stubbornness is an affliction, the ugly cousin of persistence. I sometimes confuse the two.
It occurs to me... 