A man walks down the middle of a road. There are no lights, no moon, and he’s dressed in all black. A car drives down the same street. The car has no lights but swerves to miss the man at the last second. How does this happen? I will let you think about the answer for a bit before I say what it is (and don’t try and go to the end and see what the answer is.
I thought about that and put the answer somewhere in this article. Now you are forced to read the whole thing supervillain laugh). I love riddles. When I first heard this one, I racked my brain trying to figure it out. I thought to myself, “I bet the answer is something obvious and simple,” but knowing myself, I made it more difficult than it had to be.
Read: Blessing is Not a Right but a Gift
One of my pet peeves in any movie or tv show is when someone bursts into a room and is out of breath and yells, “Quick, come with me. We don’t have much time”. Then a person asks, “What is it?” and the first person says something dumb like, “Just hurry!”. That’s it, and then they cut to the scene when they arrive at wherever the problem is, and the second person still doesn’t know what is going on.
It takes 2-3 seconds to say mass murderer on the loose, zombie apocalypse heading our way, John was shot, needs help, or whatever happened. It seems evident that it could be done, but it isn’t. We see it repeatedly in romantic comedies. If the star had just had better communication in the first few scenes, they wouldn’t have gone through everything they go through in the movie.
Answer so simple and so obvious
We as a human race love to make things more complicated than they have to be. Believe it or not, God doesn’t like when details aren’t apparent to us. He wants life to be enjoyable. He wants you to be a good spouse, a good parent, a good co-worker, a good friend. We make some of the most boneheaded decisions to stop our blessings and make it hard. So back to the riddle. How did the car see the guy with all those obstacles and setbacks? It’s obvious. It was during the daytime. When I heard the answer after approximately 37 minutes of deep thought, I was like, Ohhhhhhhhhhh. The answer is so simple and so obvious.
But I hear you saying, “What is obvious for you may not be obvious for someone else.” That is true. That is why the Bible exists. Jesus wants to help us through every single situation in our lives, no matter how insignificant we may think it is. When you gain wisdom, so many things that weren’t obvious before become obvious.
Think about the job that you do to make a living. You probably felt a little overwhelmed the first week at the job because the answer to the problem you were trying to solve didn’t jump out at you. Then after 3-4 years on the job, those tasks become like breathing, just automatic. That is what studying the Bible and praying do for a Christian. You do not have to go through life figuring it out on your own. There are too many Christians such as myself that would love to go through it with you. I always said one of Jesus’ greatest accomplishments was having twelve close friends. How did he do that?
There are a series of commercials with a character named Captain Obvious, and he basically tells people, hey, this is easy. Do this instead of doing it the hard way. That is what Jesus tells us every single day. This stuff is easy. Just do it the right way, and things would work out so much better for us. But like the star in the rom-com, we need to make this movie last 2 hours so let’s do it the hard way instead. I have gotten to a point in my life where I am tired of doing things the hard way. I want to do them quickly and spend more time with my family and helping others.
There is a Jesus-sized hole in your heart. Until you confess, believe, and become a Christian, only he can fill that void. Food, drugs, sex, money, work are all poor substitutes because none of these make you whole. We were made to seek Jesus, and when we ignore the obvious answer, we find ourselves going down a dark path. The great news is even when we face those tests, we can always erase the wrong answer and put Jesus in its place.
Prescott Williamson is a Bible-believing Christian. He is a husband, a father, and someone who believes that there is a little humor to be found in whatever situation God sends your way. He was born in the small islands of the Bahamas but now lives in the Suburbs of Fort Worth Texas, which is basically the same thing. He enjoys TV, reading, blogging and serving in his church (especially on the days they serve donuts). You can see what I have been thinking about lately on my blog www.prescottascoolbreeze.com.
