When I last visited Linnea and Adam’s family, their children’s ages were Skylar-3, Micah-2, and Autumn, just 6 weeks. All of them, parents included, were still in the throes of adjusting to a new baby.

One day after Skylar, Micah, and I had come home from a quick trip to the store, I suggested the kids open the toilet paper 12-pack we’d bought and use the soft rolls like building blocks. My own little ones had enjoyed this, and it would keep them busy for a few minutes.

In short order Skylar was constructing a beautiful tower, adeptly lining up the TP rolls one atop the other. “Take a picture, Grandma Midgee!” she said. Even little Autumn was fascinated, quietly focusing on the TP from the safety of her infant seat.

After snapping a picture and complimenting Skylar’s fine engineering skills, I walked around the corner to put my camera away and came back to find this:

… a good idea gone bad.

We can all remember initiating projects (or relationships) that in the end went sour. Most of us can cite experiences that started well but resulted in our being robbed of time, emotions, or money. And all of us have choked down a piece or two of humble pie after making errors in judgment or decisions that were just plain stupid.

But… (we said), “It seemed like a good idea at the time!”

Scripture tells hundreds of tales about foolhardy people acting recklessly against God’s counsel, stories that could have ended with the quote above.

• Eve thought it was a good idea to eat the forbidden fruit.
• Abraham thought it was a good idea to say his wife was his sister.
• David thought it was a good idea to sleep with a married woman.
• Peter thought it was a good idea to disassociate himself from Jesus.

How could so many bad ideas have seemed good… at the time?

It was probably a result of thinking that personal judgment outranked everyone else’s. But God included biblical stories of failure to show us what not to do. It’s up to us, though, whether or not we act differently.

Sometimes we make the same thoughtless mistakes expecting something different than the same miserable results. And it doesn’t help that when our botched ideas “seem like a good idea at the time,” God’s ideas often “don’t seem like a good idea at the time.” But if we follow his wiser way anyway, the bottom line has a much better chance of turning out good.

I did learn something from the TP tower episode: grandmas don’t always have the best ideas either. After all, it was my idea to put baby Autumn on the floor to watch Skylar’s TP construction. It sure seemed like a good idea at the time.

“Pray that our God will make you fit for what he’s called you to be; pray that he’ll fill your good ideas and acts of faith with his own energy so that it all amounts to something.” (2 Thessalonians 1:11)