It was a simple weed trimmer with only a few parts to assemble. The directions looked easy, and with a couple clicks, it would be ready to go—except it wasn’t. It looked right, but the deck wasn’t flat. Unless I wanted to create deep cuts in the yard, I needed a solution.

I looked at the instructions. I didn’t find anything that pointed to something I hadn’t already tried. I went through each label in the diagram to see if I’d missed something. No, I’d accounted for each lever and button. What on earth? I picked up the manual one more time. Oh. This time I found it. I apparently hadn’t turned enough pages. Not surprisingly, the solution was easy.

I’m not a don’t-follow-directions sort of person. Well, I’ll admit to diverging from GPS guidance occasionally. And I rarely measure every ingredient when in the kitchen. But I have no philosophical issue with following directions. I appreciate and seek them often. But perhaps I don’t pay enough attention to detail at times.

We can’t give attention to everyone in our lives. We can’t research everything. We have limits. If we wait for step by step instructions to everything we do, we will only creep forward. We might even lose ground at times. We have to be wise in trusting what we’ve learned and seeking what we need to learn. Even what we know should be tested at times. As we mature, we can understand more. We need to prune what we needed for stability at times but we find is not as essential as we once thought.

There used to be a home improvement show called Clean Sweep, where homeowners sorted their belongings into three piles of Keep, Sell, Toss. What’s in the Keep pile this year, might not have existed or been missed two years prior, is currently needed and kept, and is old or tossed another year or two down the road. We keep what we don’t need for too long. Sometimes it’s because we overlook it. Other times, we rationalize we need it but are unwilling to honestly examine. Yet other times, we need to keep something that seems unnecessary because it has a short term purpose.

Jesus taught a parable about wheat and weeds. Even though the weeds weren’t wanted, they needed to stay until the harvest. Otherwise, the removal of the weeds could damage the wheat as well. There is a time to prune and weed. There is a time to cultivate. There is a time to seek guidance. There is a time to trust. There is a time to ask questions.

There is always a need for reflecting on the past. It’s important for healing and learning. It’s important for moving forward. And that’s where our primary focus and motion should be. We’ll feel stuck at times because we don’t have a solution, but keep digging. It’s okay—and necessary—to ask directions and read instructions.

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