Ecclesiastes 10
If the ax is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed but skill will bring success, v10.
Now we all know Solomon is not talking about sharpening axes and using them with skill! He’s an old man looking back on his life and seeing that much of life is sheer effort, sweating with little success because we have failed to work smartly.
It makes sense to sharpen the ax, but for some reason we don’t, we haven’t got the time, there is so much to do and it needs to be done yesterday. So we just keep working with dullness.
We know we should rest, play, slow down, but we don’t. We know we should eat healthy but we don’t. We know we should pray but we don’t. We know. But we don’t.
Something is wrong with our brain.
I wonder how much of our lives is spent with a dull blade? No one can deny our effort. But we could have been more focused, smarter, more balanced.
How much flexibility is in us? Do we think the same way, make the same decisions and do the same actions?
Recently I found myself literally staring at a puzzle which seemed to last for hours! It is part of the cognitive reflection test and it is used in place of IQ tests to see how patient candidates are and how good they are at making decisions. Here it is:
A bat and a ball cost £1.10. The bat costs one pound more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?”
My immediate response was 10 pence. It is wrong.
I spent so much time coming up with the same answer.
I had to google it to find the answer!
So today like most days I pray for wisdom, sharpness, the willingness to change, to be flexible, to slow down, to breathe, to enjoy and engage, to work at a puzzle, to learn to not be driven by my first response, to google.
Missions Paul 