What warning do you habitually ignore which puts you at greater risk: Speed limit? Seatbelt signs? Warning labels on cigarette packs? (Serendipity Bible Fourth Edition, page 547).
Note that all of the example warnings mentioned in the above question have to do one way or another with limitations. We frequently do not want to acknowledge plain limitation. This is especially true in those situations where we are planning for the future and our hopes are highest – when our faith is strongest. We then can actively discount and ignore all limitations. In one way this is powerful and good. For example, would I have attended any graduate school had I known fully the arduous nature of the task and then in advance pessimistically listed all my pitiful limitations? No, I think it’s quite clear that sometimes being actively stupid in evaluating limitations can be a very beneficial thing for sometimes we do not know our own strength nor the resources that will be made available for us. Yet, it is quite clear that human beings habitually and daily go out of their way to harmfully ignore limitations. Somehow we learn that success largely depends upon ignoring the poor opinion we have of ourselves or situations and to aggressively assume risks. Then, perversely, a potential good gets screwed up when we contrarily and almost in spite apply it to harmful matters – such as overeating and smoking. Then we fool ourselves by thinking the pleasures and razzle-dazzle of brash symbols are more important than the hidden workings of indelible facts–a conflict whose resolution is sure to put us under.
