A mind of its own

There was this one time, I was at church, sitting idling in a room somewhere. A kid ran in and stopped somewhere near me. He looked at the candy he was holding...then he looked at me. I laughed, then offhanded told him that candy was good for him (obviously unthoughtful on my part). He blinked a bit, then ran off. I wonder how that kid is doing. Haha. Okay, so I guess I'm the bad guy of this story.

Or the time when I was in elementary. A bunch of kids on my block decided to create a bike "jump" with a small wooden ramp propped up, and were biking into it fast enough to get some air time. I came wheeling along, looked fun, so I went off the ramp too. Unfortunately for me, my sense of bicycle balance isn't as great as theirs, and I wiped out upon landing. A bleeding, crying little kid ran home, dragging his little bike as best as he could then.

I've heard that the reason why kids these days get so much allergies is because parents are over-protective. Don't want them to get out to the playground, in case they trip and inhale some dirt. In case they decided that ramps were cool and they come back crying. In case some guy decides that it is a good idea to tell them that candy is a good thing. Pain and bad influence. Can't have that. So their immune systems don't adjust to the environment properly. No dirt to attack...so I guess some of them decide to turn on random legit substances...hence food allergies. In trying to protect them from one danger, they encounter another.

Like probably many people out there, one lesson I have to learn constantly is the ability to let go. Not forget about it. Let go. Because the situations we get into, the people we know, the things that happen...sometimes, many times, it's just not something we can do much about. Sometimes it's okay, a deadline coming. Sometimes it sucks, PDENG workshop on the day of CCF Winter Retreat. Some day, its just plain bad, a sickness in the family. These situational things are the fires we have to tend to. They never really stop appearing, you just need to choose which of them are important enough for to you tend to and put out.

As someone who works in a ministry that deals with people, I find myself asking why alot. Why don't you have the motivation to work? Why can't you set aside your differences? Why wouldn't sacrifice a little bit of your time to do this? Why are you so bent on getting 100%? Why can't you chill for a bit, and reassess the situation? Why don't you want to think and ask questions? Why do you insist on doing it your way? Why don't they get it?

It's because each of these people have a mind of their own. I was at the ECE FYDP Symposium this year, and I saw an automatic foosball playing machine. I was like wow. If they get their programming right, no human can beat this...each of the rows of players would be synchronized. They'd all have one controller. Not like normal, when control is spread over 2 people...

But then...isn't the point of a team-game like foosball designed so many people can have fun at once? I sometimes wonder how much easier Caring would be if only everyone thought like I did. All those questions earlier? All gone. At worst, everyone would have the same type of problems I do. But then, with everyone unified in thought, we bound to figure out solutions, right?

I've always cognitively known why God gave us free will. He doesn't want robots to be serving and worshiping Him. Where's the fun in that? People would all be the same. We'd be flat and boring. Predictable. Nothing but a single PDE.

Diversity makes this work a bit more interesting, I suppose. If I didn't have free will and the ability to question and challenge things, I wouldn't be generating this thought about why God granted us free will. I would've just accepted it, because it's matter-of-fact. And thus people become unpredictable. God could've just protected us from everything. Pre-program everyone so we avoid danger and free from pain. But then...we probably would be plagued by some personality allergy or something crazy like that.

So He "get us go" such that we can make our own decisions. I guess He doesn't really want the kids that just sit at home all day and dully obey commands and don't move unless told. He wants people that would explore life and run around on this planet He constructed. To search and discover. To teach and learn. And along with that, all the bad stuff. The destruction and the greed. And pain and the suffering. And the ability to decide that God doesn't have it all together. The ability to disown your Family.

I suppose, just like how every parent, when they have to watch their kids leave home for university, away from their careful watch and influence, they have to hope that the kids have enough of their values and whatnot so that they won't be destroyed by the pressures of life, or succumb to the temptations of the world. That they won't forget their family and squander their time. That they'll come back victorious and not broken.

I guess God worries that we will falter. Just like any good parents would. But in order to let something go...the implicit factor is that you have faith that the situation will be alright. Is this heretic to say? That God has faith in me...such that I can walk back home one day, telling Him not to worry, that I'm safe and sound and home.