Have you ever spent an extended period of time working on fixing something, only to find out later that you’re solution isn’t a good solution at all?  Well, let me tell you a technological story.  Last night, I was working on preparing a promotional video for an English camp in Hungary.  I had many segments prepared that I could choose highlight clips from, but I had moved the files without telling Final Cut Pro where they were now located. 471 files were now missing and I didn’t know what to do!  (I’m teaching myself the program).  So I hopped over to google and found myself frustrated as I finally found a solution.  One by one, relink the files.  About 25 minutes into it, i push a wrong button and have to start over.  Well, this happens several times.  I then start to get creative and try different solutions, maybe if i select all the photos from one folder it will find them.  That worked!  But again, they wouldn’t link, because i pushed the escape key!  Finally,  about an hour and a half into trying to link these files, I ask “what if I select the parent folder, will it find all the files?”  and it did worked.  I spent an hour and a half on a project that should have taken 45 seconds because I was ignorant.  

All I could see was a big, red warning until the solution became clear.  Next time, it will take 45 seconds, but I don’t regret the frustration of research and mistakes because it’s not going to happen again.  I’m learning we can work hard or we can work smart, or we can do both.  

As I grow in many areas, I begin to ask questions that cause me to work smarter, but that doesn’t negate hard work, it only empowers better work!  Are you working hard or working smart for the Kingdom of God?