Help! I'm Stuck!
We've had our new phones for nearly two months, and I must admit that I'm still trying to figure out how everything works. Daily, I discover things that I had no idea my phone could do. (I'm still trying to teach it how to do the laundry and dishes, but so far, I haven't had any luck in that area.)
When we got the phones, one of the first things Jason did was download a lot of different games on his. I'm not much of a game person, so instead, I downloaded a lot of books. One evening, as we lay in bed together, we were each preoccupied with our new toy. I was reading on my phone and loving every minute of it while Jason was testing out his new games. Not much time had passed before I grew very annoyed at the constant "click, click, click" this one game was making. I looked over at his phone to see what was making such a distracting sound. I became entranced. It was a logic game (which I don't usually like), but it looked like so much fun.
The game is called "Unblock Me." The "board" is set up with rectangular blocks, some horizontal and some vertical. There is one red block among the other brown blocks. The object of the game is to slide the red block through the opening on the right side of the screen. Oh, and did I mention that the blocks can only move in the direction in which they are pointing? Vertical blocks can only move up and down while horizontal blocks can only move side to side.
I sat beside Jason spellbound as he completed one puzzle after another. This looks like fun, I thought. When will I ever learn? I downloaded the game to my phone. It took less than a minute for me to complete the first puzzle. Wow, this is easy! It took me twenty minutes to solve the second puzzle. I was about ready to throw the thing across the room. After finally solving the dumb thing, you would think I would have stopped while I was ahead. No, I decided to keep playing. The next few puzzles went fairly quickly, and then came puzzle #8. I spent three days trying to figure it out. Truth be told, I never did figure it out. My 15-year old niece saw me working on it and asked if she could try. She solved it within minutes. Smarty pants!
After several more tries at various puzzles, I finally realized my problem. I was thinking too much (yeah, I know that's hard to believe). Really, though, hear me out. I knew which blocks needed to be in what spots in order for the red block to be freed. With those thoughts, I focused only on moving those blocks where I thought they needed to be. What I didn't realize is that sometimes I needed to move the red block farther away from the opening before I could clear a path. Weird, huh? That's why I don't play logic games!
Sometimes I feel like life is one big logic game. I see all the pieces and where I think they should go, but I struggle with getting them to the appropriate positions. Why? I'm trying to hard to figure it out on my own. Proverbs 3:5 says, Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not on thine own understanding. That's what I was doing wrong when playing "Unblock Me." I was leaning on my own understanding of the game. Since I realized my problem, I've approached the game in a different way, and I'm happy to say I'm currently on puzzle # 71 (of 400). Sigh! Now, if I can just learn to do the same thing in life. Stop trying to figure out how I think things should work and leave the solving up to the One who created the puzzle in the first place.