If you think something is a good wish, dream, and desire, if you can see the potential of achieving it, you will go ahead and start pursuing it. You start putting a plan together that will assist you in reaching that goal. If you feel good about it, you typically won’t question the dream. You will simply work on the strategies necessary for reaching it. If all your efforts are put into improving and working on the plans, then little time is spent examining whether or not the goal is a worthy objective. That can happen to us all.

A lot of books, seminars, training sessions, and courses devote their time to helping people reach their goals. You have learned how to develop strategies, systems, positive attitudes, and problem solving techniques for reaching a destination; but, what if it isn’t good for you? What if you just think it is good for you? Since your boss, your leader, your friends, your trainer, or you have decided a particular objective is good, you drop that issue and just learn how to go about making it happen.

The way most people test whether or not a desire or goal is a good one is to put a lot of time, effort, and money into it. Then they wait and see what kind of results they get. Some of those who find out, at the end, that it didn’t produce the results they were looking for, will simply try to improve on the idea for making it happen. It may not have been worth the original effort; but, they will even give it more time, effort, and money. They are trying to perfect something that was never worth the effort.

Adults watch children and young people make the same mistakes they made. As they watch these novices, they already know how the situation is going to turn out. But, because the child or young person isn’t open to suggestions, the only thing that can happen, is for the beginner to “learn the hard way.” That is a sad situation; but, this is the fate of most people in this world. Their plans for making it happen were effective and good; but their goal, dream, aspiration, and desire wasn’t worth the effort.

Jesus watches us like we watch young people and novices. He knows how our lives are going to turn out, as we decide to try various ideas. He has incredible knowledge, understanding, and wisdom; He even has the ability to look into the future and see exactly how everything is going to turn out (foreknowledge). He sees everyone’s past, present, and future as one big, completed picture; it is all very clear to Him.

Jesus already knows what works and what doesn’t; in other words, He has a clear understanding of all those things that will work for everyone. He also knows what will fail every person who tries it. He has drawn out, in the Bible, all those activities, philosophies, principles, and character traits that will make us happy. He also tells us about the ones that will hurt us and let us down; but, do we want to allow Jesus to help us?

What if you always knew who was going to win and who was going to lose in every game you played? What if you always won at every match you played in every sport? At first it would be very rewarding to win all the time; but, gradually you would start looking for something “more challenging.” We don’t like losing; but, we do like the challenge of competition and the chance that we might lose.

The reason some people don’t like getting involved in a “sure thing” is, they want and like the challenge and risk involved in taking chances. To them, it seems to be fun messing up their lives and seeing if they can recover from it. They are willing to take dares and bets from friends and life just so they can live on the edge. But, sooner or later, they get caught in the trap and find themselves suffering from their careless approach to life.