I play it every day, swapping scores with a fellow word-nerd. (Really, it’s an excuse to text when life is busy and we cannot see each other as often as we’d like.) Today’s score: 3 out of 6 guesses. Wordle told me that was “impressive.”
While a photographic memory of Webster’s Dictionary would probably ensure success at Wordle, it isn’t necessary. I have found it more important to have good logic skills. Still, there are days when my brain refuses logic and focuses on just one solution, dismissing the need to look for other possibilities. It’s as if I put on ‘word blinders’, finding one and only one way to solve the puzzle. On those days, the game is less fun and more frustrating.
It’s okay to laugh. Being frustrated by a word game is silly, but it’s not the game’s fault. It’s my fault. To be frank, it’s really not funny when I put on blinders, especially in areas of my life like parenting and prayer.
More often than I’d like, I pray for my children with an expectation for how God should answer my prayer. Lord, help my son learn the importance of integrity by turning in his assignments on time. Without saying it outright, I make it clear that I expect God to teach my son integrity through the life-experience of classwork assignments, as if that is the only way God can teach integrity.
Let’s just call this what it is: foolishness.
Wisdom, the Proverbs tell us, is leaning not on our own understanding (like the best ways to teach lessons to our children, for example) but trusting the Lord with all of our heart (Proverbs 3:5-6). Wisdom, therefore, is looking to God as our Source for answers to life’s problems.
When we’ve got spiritual blinders on, we miss the many ways God answers our prayers because He did it in unexpected ways. But we don’t want to miss a thing God is doing, right? Our challenge then is to lay our burdens at the feet of Jesus and trust Him with the resolution—in whatever way He chooses. He’s amazingly creative. He’ll come up with answers we cannot imagine. Now, that’s impressive!
