When the Lord appeared to Paul to convince him that he should stop persecuting Christians, he asked how long Paul would “kick against the pricks.” He was trying to make Paul aware of the available evidence that Christ was the Messiah. He had the stories of all the miracles Jesus had performed, the darkness and earthquake during the crucifixion, the hundreds of eyewitnesses to his resurrection, and the witnesses of those who saw the righteous dead co-resurrected with Christ. He should have recognized Jesus as the Messiah—he knew the law of Moses and the prophecies. It took a fantastically bold vision and subsequent blindness for Paul to finally get it.
Jonah tried to run away from God’s will. Finding himself in the hellish outcome of his foolishness, he prayed to God in plain humility. He said, “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.” (Jonah 2:8) In order to make the best of any situation, you must first decide to get honest about what is really going on.
We should be easier to entreat than Paul or Jonah, who are typically scapegoated as examples of obstinance. We look at them and sneer, “what fools!” Countless examples show that obliviousness is not specific to them. God constantly assaults us with signs that what we perceive is incorrect or incomplete. We are mostly oblivious to them, and typically only respond when something hits us so directly that it threatens to destroy us completely. “Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth instruction: but he that regardeth reproof shall be honoured.” (Proverbs 13:18)
No greater witness to the human tendency towards “kicking against the pricks” exists than the epidemic of depression and suicide. Depression is caused by dishonesty—specifically, an unwillingness to accept things as they are.
The path to greatest joy is the one most aligned with reality. You can fight reality all you want, but you will never win.
Some hesitation to change may occur due to fear of making a mistake. There is no harm in being unsure. It is good to recognize when we don’t know the answer. The harm comes when we either a) know the answer but have convinced ourselves that we don’t yet know, or b) we forget that the one and only way to find the answer is to act.
The key to knowing what is good is using our intelligence to think about what would benefit. This will result in a collection of potential positive and negative outcomes for each choice. Then, we act to obtain more information about the path that seems most beneficial. As we take the path that seems more positive, we will know with a surety whether that path is how we imagined it as our actions either result in the expected outcomes, something worse, or something better. This is a process that happens as quickly as our actions are bold.
Bold, quick actions generate clear and fast answers. Slow, subtle actions generate slow, subtle answers that can be easily misinterpreted. In other words, confusion need not be anything but the most temporary state. Confusion is an invitation to ponder on the situation, to catalog choices, to consider positive and negative consequences, and finally, to act. People who follow this recipe will hardly ever make a mistake, and when they do, they will very quickly notice it and any damage incurred will be absolutely minimal compared to those who follow some other practice. Those people, in contrast, will find themselves constantly tormented by a mediocre life, tormented by thoughts of what could have been and a deep nagging feeling that they aren’t being their best selves and living an abundant life.