Not Too Bright

*this was originally posted after we had built and moved into our house and were still having issues finding and sealing all of the unwanted entrance points. We live in a corn field. What did we expect?

In the continuing saga of our house “guest” removal, we have been placing traps on the counter at night. The first night, the lights had only been off in the kitchen for about five minutes when the first trap snapped. Another five minutes passed and the second trap went. When I went down to empty and reload, the first trap had been slicked clean by the second mouse before he moved to the second trap. How smart is that? To eat from the trap right next to your recently departed companion and then move on to your own demise is not too bright.
But it sounds all too human. The Bible tells us “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” (Rom. 15:4) How many times have we looked at the examples of the nation of Israel in the Old Testament and thought “How dumb could they be? Didn’t they remember what happened the last time they stopped following God’s commands?” How many times have we looked at the Pharisees or even the disciples in the New Testament and thought that we would have done things differently and “How could they have been so blind?”
Whether you look at the history of the world, the history of one nation in particular, or our own personal history, it doesn’t take long to realize that what teachers are so fond of saying is true. “History repeats itself because we don’t learn from the past.” Why is that? Perhaps it is because with our so-called “superior technology” and immediate access to a vast wealth of information we feel that we are in some way above our ancestors, smarter than them or impervious to the mistakes that they made. Perhaps we underestimate the power that Satan holds in this world (albeit, a power granted to him by the Almighty) or the strength with which he tries to woo us. Or perhaps it is that we overestimate our own strength and cannot accurately understand the position that our ancestors found themselves in when they made the mistakes that are so obvious to us.
Whatever the reason, we find ourselves both globally and personally making the same blunders as those who came before us. We step in the same traps they did. We’re still Not Too Bright.