Possibly the best sermon I ever heard was based on just those 4 words, spoken by a disciple on the Emmaus road. I also listened (about 30 times) to a Flyleaf song yesterday, "So I thought."

You know the Emmaus road story. These guys were all ready for the Messiah they expected, not the Messiah they got. When they were all ready for him to go the the throne, he went to the cross. And there they were, stunned, shocked, hopeless, in the complete wreckage of something that they had been completely sure about. They had staked their lives, really, on God, and (so they thought) been let down. What happened? They hadn't let God be God; they had substituted their expectations for the real God. We all do this, all the time. I'm not being metaphorical. Everybody does it, all the time. 24x7. We can't help it.

But my point was more about that sensation when you are suddenly on your face on the concrete, nonplussed. Blindsided by a near-fatal blow coming from the one direction you felt sure was safe and reliable. Every life has at least a couple of these episodes in it. What is happening at such a time?

We see reality through our senses, and interpret it with our minds. That's reality to us. We can in fact be quite mistaken, but to us it's still 100% real. Then the actual reality strolls by, and asserts itself, destructively. It can be a person who is not what you thought. It can be a trust that was unwisely placed. It can be a misconception about God, or the tax laws, or even the color of the stop signal. Then the smackdown happens.

Obviously, preventive medicine is best. The closer we can be to reality, and the sooner we can get a course correction, the better. And like adulthood messages 1-9, the lesson is the need to humbly hear, to think long and answer slowly, to relentlessly question one's sureties. Otherwise, at some point, you're sitting on your keister very suddenly, blinking at a very bright light and admiring the pretty colored stars while your surroundings whirl. And it can go downhill from there.